World

BRUSSELS,  (Reuters) – Allies are discussing keeping a NATO force of between 8,000 and 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, the United States said on Friday in the first official indication of how many foreign troops will stay in the country after most combat troops leave.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuela’s cancer-stricken president, Hugo Chavez, is still suffering respiratory problems after surgery in Cuba two months ago, the government said yesterday in a sombre first communique since his homecoming this week.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – A car bomb killed 53 people and wounded 200 in central Damascus yesterday when it blew up on a busy highway close to ruling Baath Party offices and the Russian Embassy, Syrian television said.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Russia will lease eight jets worth $650 million to its Cold War- era ally Cuba and will partially write off the country’s multi-billion-dollar, Soviet-era debt under agreements signed during Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Havana yesterday.

ROME – Silvio Berlusconi’s resurgence and the rise of a foul-mouthed populist comedian have thrown Italy’s weekend election wide open, with deep uncertainty over whether the poll can produce the strong government the country needs.

HYDERABAD, India,  (Reuters) – Two bombs placed on bicycles exploded in a crowded market-place in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad yesterday, and the federal home minister said at least 11 people were killed and 50 wounded.

LAS VEGAS,  (Ruterse) – Three people died in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip early yesterday when one or more gunmen in a Range Rover sport utility vehicle opened fire on a Maserati, killing the driver and touching off a fiery multi-car crash.

 (Reuters) – And the Oscar for best pickup line in a movie goes to – Audrey Hepburn in the romantic thriller, “Charade.”

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – A car bomb killed 53 people and wounded 200 in central Damascus today when it blew up on a busy highway close to ruling Baath Party offices and the Russian Embassy, Syrian television said.

HYDERABAD, India,  (Reuters) – Two bombs placed on bicycles exploded in a crowded market-place in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad today, and the federal home minister said at least 11 people were killed and 50 wounded.

CAIRO,  (Reuters) – Foreign investment in Egypt was almost non-existent in the six months to the end of December, Planning Minister Ashraf al-Araby said today, illustrating the depth of the economic crisis facing the Arab world’s most populous nation.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – Faced with what experts say is growing theft of U.S.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Brazil agreed yesterday to negotiate the purchase of Russian anti-aircraft missile batteries on the condition that Russia transfer the technology to Brazilian defense companies without restrictions.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – Onetime Democratic Party rising star Jesse Jackson Jr.,

The US Coast Guard intercepted 1,400 pounds of cocaine with an estimated wholesale value of more than US$17 million from a go-fast vessel in the southwest Caribbean Sea on Jan.

AMRITSAR, India,  (Reuters) – David Cameron today became the first serving British prime minister to voice regret about one of the bloodiest episodes in colonial India, a massacre of unarmed civilians in the city of Amritsar in 1919.

The US Coast Guard intercepted 1,400 pounds of cocaine with an estimated wholesale value of more than US$17 million from a go-fast vessel in the southwest Caribbean Sea on Jan.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – President Dilma Rousseff yesterday raised the monthly stipend of 2.5 million people living below the poverty line to make good on her promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Brazil, a nation with enormous income gaps between rich and poor.

Rob Morrison, a news anchor for WCBS-TV, was arrested on Sunday on charges of choking his wife during a domestic dispute at their Connecticut home, the police said on Monday.

BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) – A secretive Chinese military unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S.