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Reuters - Saturday, July 4

British troops expand major Afghan operation

SORKHDOZ, Afghanistan - Hundreds of British troops have seized key canal crossings in a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, military officials said on Friday, part of a new U.S.-led operation to wrest the initiative from insurgents. The British push, one of the largest its overstretched troops have made in the Taliban heartland and key opium-producing province of Helmand, is part of a wider offensive launched by thousands of U.S. Marines on Thursday.

Junta stalls on Ban request to see Suu Kyi

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had a rare meeting with Myanmar junta supremo Than Shwe on Friday but left with no clear answer to his request to see detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi, who has spearheaded the campaign for democracy for two decades in the former Burma, is currently on trial for breaching a security law, which critics say is an attempt by the generals to keep her out of multi-party elections to be held next year.

Honduras to meet OAS but tells Zelaya "don't come"

TEGUCIGALPA - An interim government in Honduras warned ousted President Manuel Zelaya to stay away but indicated it could be more conciliatory in talks on Friday with the Organisation of American States over the country's crisis. Roberto Micheletti, head of a caretaker leadership set up after an army coup, said he welcomed the chance to talk with OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza, who was expected to arrive in Honduras early on Friday with an ultimatum to reinstate Zelaya or be suspended from the regional body.

Demjanjuk pronounced fit to stand trial in Germany

BERLIN - Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk has been deemed fit enough by medical experts to stand trial in Germany for helping to kill 29,000 Jews in World War Two, the state prosecutors office in Munich said Friday. Demjanjuk, 89, deported to Germany from the United States, has been held in a jail near Munich since May 12. His trial is expected to be Germany's final major Nazi war crimes court case.

EU summons Iranian envoys over detentions

BRUSSELS - European Union countries summoned Iranian ambassadors on Friday to protest against the detention of Iranian staff of the British embassy in Tehran, but held off for now on tougher steps including visa bans. EU foreign ministers last week urged Iran to swiftly release Iranian employees of Britain's Tehran embassy and a Greek journalist detained as alleged instigators of street protests over disputed presidential election results.

Syria's Assad offers informal invitation to Obama

LONDON - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued an informal invitation to President Barack Obama to visit Damascus for talks, in a sign that relations between the two countries may gradually be thawing. "We would like to welcome him to Syria, definitely," Assad told Sky News in an interview broadcast on Friday. "I am very clear about this."

No Russia-U.S. arms deal yet - sources

MOSCOW - U.S. and Russian negotiators have still not reached agreement on cutting stocks of their deadliest nuclear weapons ahead of President Barack Obama's first visit to Moscow Monday, sources close to the talks said. Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev are expected to announce next week an outline deal on reducing the numbers of strategic nuclear missiles as the centrepiece of the U.S. president's visit.

Athens bomb targets McDonald's, no injuries

ATHENS dynamite bomb smashed windows of the fast-food restaurant, which was the target of the attack and not an adjacent government tax office building as initially thought.

Darfur rebels sign deal with Sudan opposition party

KHARTOUM , which attacked Khartoum last year, and the opposition Umma party told Reuters the deal was a "declaration of principles" and shared ideas and did not amount to a political or military alliance.

Presidential election key to Indonesia's transformation

JAKARTA - With Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono tipped to be re-elected on July 8, Southeast Asia's biggest economy is likely to see a renewed push for reform to attract foreign investment, create jobs and spur growth. Opinion polls, which proved fairly reliable in predicting the outcome of the parliamentary elections in April, put former general Yudhoyono well ahead of his rivals, former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and the current vice president, Jusuf Kalla.

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