TOP STORIES
-----------
CAIRO - The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was arrested by Egyptian security forces on Thursday in a crackdown against the Islamist movement after the army ousted the country's first democratically elected president.
- - - -
FUKUSHIMA, Japan - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, riding high in opinion polls on hopes he can revive a stagnant economy, urged voters on Thursday to back his ruling bloc in this month's upper house election and end a six-year policy deadlock.
- - - -
MTHATHA - A feud between factions of Nelson Mandela's family descended into soap opera farce on Thursday when his grandson and heir, Mandla, accused relatives of adultery and milking the fame of the revered anti-apartheid leader.
- - - -
AMMAN - Syria's fractious opposition coalition meets on Thursday under pressure to name a new leader and prove to its Western and Arab backers it can be trusted with advanced weapons to beat back a concerted offensive by President Bashar al-Assad.
- - - -
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama sought to allay concerns from German Chancellor Angela Merkel about reported U.S. spying on European allies on Wednesday, and they agreed to hold a high-level meeting on the subject in coming days.
- - - -
MOSCOW - Edward Snowden should find another country to seek refuge, a Russian official said on Thursday, signalling Moscow's growing impatience over the former U.S. agency spy contractor's lengthening stay at a Moscow airport.
- - - -
MOSCOW - Russia voiced concern on Thursday that no progress has been made towards organising new talks between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear programme, despite the election of a relative moderate as Iran's president.
- - - -
PARIS - A Paris employment tribunal on Thursday rejected former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel's plea for a new expert inquiry to help overturn his dismissal in France's biggest-ever trading scandal in 2008.
- - - -
MEXICO CITY - A year after winning the Mexican presidency, Enrique Pena Nieto needs a solid performance by the opposition in state elections on Sunday to keep alive a fragile alliance he built to steer reforms through Congress.
- - - -
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - Unknown gunmen killed one of Afghanistan's most high-profile female police officers on Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks targeting top women officials amid a drawdown of foreign combat forces in the country.
- - - -
LISBON - Talks between Portugal's prime minister and his coalition partner were said on Thursday to be progressing to defuse a political crisis that has jolted Lisbon's hope of a smooth exit from its international bailout.
- - - -
LONDON - Rupert Murdoch belittled a British police inquiry into bribes allegedly paid by his journalists in a secret recording made by his staff, in sharp contrast to the profuse public apologies he made to defuse anger at news gathering practices.
- - - -
SEOUL - North and South Korea agreed on Thursday to hold talks aimed at reopening a jointly run factory park that was a rare source of cash for the North three weeks after their last attempt at dialogue collapsed in bickering over protocol.
- - - -
HARARE - Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court rejected a series of government appeals on Thursday to delay a July 31 general election in order to allow more time for reform of the security forces and state media.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
