Colombia, FARC agree on rebels’ future if peace signed
BOGOTA/HAVANA (Reuters) – Colombia’s government and Marxist FARC rebels reached a “fundamental agreement” on the guerrillas’ future in politics, one of the thorniest issues addressed in peace talks in Cuba, according to a joint statement on Wednesday.
U.N. struggles to break impasse in Cyprus talks
NICOSIA (Reuters) – U.N. diplomats struggled on Wednesday to revive stalled peace talks on Cyprus, where an ethnic division dating back four decades is dogging Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
Palestinian leader Arafat was murdered with polonium: widow
PARIS (Reuters) – Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse.
Spain tells U.N. no rethink on post-Franco amnesty
GENEVA (Reuters) – Spain told a critical United Nations panel on Wednesday that a 1978 amnesty for political crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and the right-wing dictatorship of Francisco Franco would not be reviewed, despite growing calls …
U.S. may consider easing sanctions on Rwanda: envoy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States would consider resuming military aid to Rwanda if it found Rwandan support for the M23 Congolese rebel group believed to use child soldiers had ended, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.
Berlusconi says his kids feel like Jews persecuted by Hitler
ROME (Reuters) – Silvio Berlusconi caused outrage in Italy’s Jewish community on Wednesday after the former prime minister said he and his children felt persecuted like Jews in Nazi Germany because of hounding by leftist magistrates.
Four killed in bomb blast as Ethiopia raises security alert: official
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Four people were killed when a bomb blast tore through a minibus in western Ethiopia late on Tuesday, at about the same time that the government warned of imminent attacks by militants, an official said.
Bolshoi director confronts alleged acid attacker in court
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The artistic director of Russia’s Bolshoi ballet told a Moscow court on Wednesday that a dancer accused of plotting an acid attack that nearly blinded him had spread false accusations that he had love affairs with ballerinas.
Capriles seeks papal mediation in Venezuela politics
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition leader Henrique Capriles held a private meeting in Rome with Pope Francis on Wednesday and sought his mediation in the South American nation’s tumultuous internal politics.
Kosovo to repeat vote in Serb north, defying hardliners
PRISTINA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Kosovo’s government said on Wednesday it would re-run a watershed election in the ethnic Serb-dominated north, setting up a showdown with Serb hardliners opposed to EU-backed efforts to end Kosovo’s de facto partition.
