Venezuelan ‘resistance’ movement struggles to bruise Maduro
VALENCIA/MERIDA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Housewives stash bottles and fuel for Molotov cocktails. Activists run a network of safe houses. Masked youths block roads. A rifle-wielding dissident general makes a call to arms.
Cash pledged for Syria at Kuwait summit ‘disappointing’: aid groups
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Aid groups tackling the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria said they were disappointed that only $3.8 billion of a requested $8.4 billion had been pledged at a U.N. summit in Kuwait.
Sonia Gandhi slur prompts call for penalties against India’s sexist politicians
NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Indian politicians who make bigoted comments should be punished by their parties, activists said on Thursday, after a government minister became the latest parliamentarian to be accused of racism and sexism.
Nigeria’s oil delta quiet as militants weigh options after Jonathan defeat
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) – The militant leaders who once wrought havoc in the Niger Delta oil industry have suddenly gone quiet following the defeat of Nigeria’s incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, in an election this week.
Ukraine and rebels discuss broadening weapons withdrawal: aide
KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine, Russia and Moscow-backed separatists are discussing possibly extending a pull-back of weapons in east Ukraine to include tanks and smaller weapons systems, a Kiev official said on Thursday.
U.N. body tells Russia to act against human rights abuses
GENEVA (Reuters) – United Nations rights experts on Thursday called on Russia to repeal laws limiting free speech and targeting homosexuals and to act firmly to prevent torture by police, racist crimes and a wide range of other human rights abuses.
As regional war rages, Syria’s Assad faces setbacks
BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – In the course of a week, several setbacks for President Bashar al-Assad have provided fresh reminders of the strains facing the Syrian army and its allies in the four-year-long struggle for Syria.
China’s foreign minister to visit Moscow next week
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Russia from April 6-8 to discuss contacts between the two countries’ presidents, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
Israeli court tells army to re-route planned Bethlehem-area barrier
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the military on Thursday to draw up new routes for a planned section of Israel’s barrier in the occupied West Bank that had threatened to separate a monastery and convent of the same Catholic order.
Sri Lanka government unlikely to allow Dalai Lama visit-official
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lankan Buddhist monks have invited exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to make his first visit to the island, after a strongly pro-China government was voted out in January, but an official said Colombo was unlikely to allow it. 
