World

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – Pope Benedict has changed Catholic Church law to allow a successor to be elected early, the Vatican said on Monday, as a senior cleric’s resignation added to the sense of an institution in crisis.

ADDIS ABABA,  (Reuters) – African leaders signed a U.N.-mediated deal yesterday aimed at ending two decades of conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and paving the way for the deployment of a new military brigade to take on rebel groups.

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, speaking in his last Sunday address before becoming the first pope in some six centuries to step down, said he was following God’s wishes and that he was not abandoning the Roman Catholic Church.

KABUL, (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai has given U.S. special forces two weeks to leave a key battleground province after accusations that Afghans working for them tortured and killed innocent people, the president’s spokesman said yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO,  (Reuters) – Dire warnings from Washington about a “cyber Pearl Harbor” envision a single surprise strike from a formidable enemy that could destroy power plants nationwide, disable the financial system or cripple the U.S.

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, speaking in his last Sunday address before becoming the first pope in some six centuries to step down, said he was following God’s wishes and that he was not abandoning the Roman Catholic Church.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt brought forward the start of parliamentary elections to April 22 yesterday to defuse a row with the Christian minority, who said the original schedule would conflict with their Easter celebrations.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s government will not hold back militarily or with words in its offensive against Marxist rebels, President Juan Manuel Santos said yesterday, after FARC guerrillas said his hostile attitude was threatening peace negotiations.

DUBAI (Reuters) – Days before resuming talks over its disputed atomic programme, Iran said yesterday it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations.

N’DJAMENA (Reuters) – Chadian troops attacked an Islamist base in northern Mali yesterday in heavy fighting which France called part of the final campaign to drive al Qaeda from its mountain hideouts.

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain (Reuters) – The Spanish king’s son-in-law appeared before a judge on the island of Mallorca yesterday to respond to charges of tax fraud in a six-million-euro embezzlement case that has eroded public support for the once-popular royal family.

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – The Vatican today accused the Italian media of spreading “false and damaging” reports in what it condemned as a deplorable attempt to influence cardinals who will meet in a secret conclave next month to elect a new pope.

CAIRO,  (Reuters) – Egyptian liberal opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei called today for a boycott of parliamentary elections which start in April, saying he refused to take part in “an act of deception”.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Companies in Britain could be forced to switch accountants to break up the cosy relationships between the “Big Four” and their clients, blamed for masking weaknesses exposed by the financial crisis.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Americans yesterday “I am back and so is Japan” and vowed to get the world’s third biggest economy growing again and to do more to bolster security and the rule of law in an Asia roiled by territorial disputes.

MONTEVIDEO, (Reuters) – Uruguay’s Supreme Court said yesterday that a law allowing fresh investigations of dictatorship-era human rights crimes violates the constitution, a ruling that puts dozens of cases into doubt.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Struggling to get Americans to take notice of looming spending cuts, the White House brought out the only Republican member of the Cabinet yesterday to argue its case that Congress needs to act soon to avoid a major disruption of air travel across the country.

UNITED NATIONS,  (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo’s resource-rich east is again on the brink of a major conflict, a senior U.N.

ROME – Italy’s election campaign drew to a close on Friday with the weak performance of outgoing premier Mario Monti key to a deeply uncertain and potentially unstable result.

LONDON/NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Britain suffered its first ever sovereign ratings downgrade from a major agency on Friday when Moody’s stripped the country of its coveted top-notch triple-A rating, dealing a major blow to finance minister George Osborne.