World

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Sunday signed a pact with the country’s leading political parties to increase competition in the telecommunications sector and overhaul the education system.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – The pace of activity in China’s vast manufacturing sector quickened for the first time in 13 months in November, a survey of private factory managers found, adding to evidence that the economy is reviving after seven quarters of slowing growth.

NEW DELHI,  (Reuters) – India’s stuttering economic reform programme faces a key parliamentary test this week on whether to let foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart Stores set up shop, in a vote that could pave the way for further measures to revive the economy.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The global economy is on edge – and that’s without the U.S.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pushed Republicans yesterday to offer specific ideas to cut the deficit, and predicted that they would agree to raise tax rates on the rich to obtain a year-end deal and avoid possible economic doom.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi called a Dec. 15 referendum on a draft constitution yesterday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The presidents of Colombia and Nicaragua on Saturday both said they hoped to avoid war and use dialogue instead to solve a dispute over a recent UN court ruling that shifted some of Colombia’s resource-rich water to the Central America country.

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) –         Hundreds of rebel fighters, singing and brandishing weapons, pulled out of Congo’s eastern border city of Goma yesterday, raising hopes for negotiations to end the insurgency.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Britain and France condemned yesterday a plan by Israel to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, saying international confidence in its desire to make peace with the Palestinians was at risk.

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea said it would carry out its second rocket launch of 2012 as its youthful leader Kim Jong-un flexes his muscles a year after his father’s death, in a move that South Korea and the United States swiftly condemned as a provocation.

MANAMA (Reuters) – US television celebrity Kim Kardashian brought out screaming fans, angry Muslim hardliners and police throwing stun grenades yesterday when she visited Bahrain to launch a milkshake franchise, witnesses said.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – Mexico’s incoming president, Enrique Pena Nieto, picked close allies yesterday to head the finance and interior ministries as he seeks to craft economic reforms and reduce drug violence in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

JERUSALEM – Hours after the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to grant de-facto statehood to Palestine, Israel responded on Friday by announcing it was authorising 3,000 new settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

NEW YORK/PARIS,  (Reuters) – Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reached a preliminary agreement with the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault last year to settle a civil lawsuit she brought against him, sources familiar with the case said.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The U.S. military campaign against al Qaeda should not be seen as a conflict without end, the Pentagon’s chief lawyer said yesterday in a speech that broached a rarely discussed subject among U.S.

TEGUCIGALPA, (Reuters) – Honduran anti-drug agents yesterday seized a record 14 tonnes of precursor chemicals for the production of methamphetamine, part of an ongoing operation that has netted $100 million in assets, federal prosecutors said.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly yesterday overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the world body to issue its long overdue “birth certificate.”

LONDON, (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron rejected the idea of a law to regulate the British press yesterday, risking a split in his government after an inquiry advised legal backing for a watchdog to police the sometimes outrageous conduct of newspapers.

SINGAPORE, (Reuters) – China’s insatiable appetite for timber is driving a growing illegal trade that is stripping forests in Africa and Asia and fuelling conflict, underscoring the urgency for Beijing to enact laws to crack down, an environment group said yesterday.

BOGOTA,  (Reuters) – Colombia will not apply a U.N. court ruling that shifts some of its resource-rich waters to Nicaragua until the Andean nation is sure that “the rights of Colombians are well defended,” President Juan Manuel Santos said yesterday.