YANGON (Reuters) – As long-isolated Myanmar opens up, its people are flexing their newly democratic muscles and testing the boundaries of freedom in a series of protests over chronic power outages. On Tuesday evening, several hundred people in the commercial capital Yangon marched at Sule Pagoda, the focal point of demonstrations in 2007 and 1988 [...]

VIENNA (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog director said on Tuesday he expected to sign a deal with Iran soon to unblock an investigation into suspected work on atom bombs, potentially brightening prospects for big-power talks with Tehran to stop a drift toward conflict. Yukiya Amano was summarizing the outcome of rare talks he conducted [...]

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has signed a $3 billion deal to buy 30 more Hawk jets from British defense group BAE Systems to train pilots to fly the Eurofighter Typhoon jets which it has already ordered from BAE. [ID:nL6E8F38YA] Saudi Arabia’s official news agency SPA quoted an unnamed official [...]

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – African Union and Somali government troops stepped up their assault on al Shabaab militants in the capital's northern outskirts on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of families to flee their makeshift homes and head for the city centre. The AU force, which already controls most of the capital, is trying to advance through the [...]

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syria’s political opposition in exile, the Syrian National Council, called on rebels in Syria on Wednesday to help secure the release of 13 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims abducted near the north Syrian city of Aleppo. The 13 were among dozens of Shi’ite pilgrims on a bus that was stopped by armed rebels as [...]