BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States and Russia on Friday raised doubts about prospects of a fast return to normal ties between NATO and Russia after the Georgian war, despite a European move to restart partnership talks with Moscow next month.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Syria said on Friday a U.N. watchdog report failed to show anything suggesting a Syrian complex bombed by Israel was a covert nuclear reactor and no further inspector visits would be permitted.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched on Friday against a pact letting U.S. forces stay in Iraq until 2011, toppling an effigy of President George W. Bush where U.S. troops once tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian armed groups in Gaza remain committed to a truce with Israel if the Jewish state reciprocates, Hamas's Gaza leader said Friday, even as militants launched more attacks from the coastal territory.

DAKAR (Reuters) - Reports of massacres, rapes, looting and child soldiers have put Democratic Republic of Congo back on the world news agenda this month as Tutsi rebels battled government troops and militias in the east.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani soldiers practiced shooting at pilotless "drone" aircraft Friday, the military said a day after the government lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador over drone missile strikes in Pakistani territory.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday the first independent monitoring report on an alleged Syrian nuclear site had hardened suspicions that Syria was building a covert reactor and would raise pressure on it to come clean.

DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) - Tibetan exiles meeting in northern India have failed to find a viable alternative to the Dalai Lama's "Middle Way" approach to China, and admit they can do little more than hope for a softening in Beijing's stance.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The governor of a Chinese province sat down with protesters after they fought pitched battles with police, a rare concession by a leader and a sign of government concerns about stability as the economy slows.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police are braced for violence at an anti-government rally this weekend and have asked the army for reinforcements to prevent a repeat of last month's bloody street battles, a senior officer said Friday.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The death toll from floods in southeastern Ethiopia has risen to 17 and more than 100,000 people have been left homeless, the government said Friday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Cases of violence by Japanese school students hit a record high in the past year, with elementary students increasingly violent, the education ministry said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy and operators of a Saudi oil supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates could not confirm on Friday reports that the hijackers had demanded a $25 million ransom.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's lower house of parliament approved on Friday a constitutional amendment extending the presidential term of office to six years from four.

BEIJING (Reuters) - An usually harsh winter is expected in the mountains of Sichuan, where millions of quake victims live in temporary housing that gives little protection against cold, rain and snow, provincial officials said on Friday.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali police ambushed and shot dead 17 fighters from the militant al Shabaab insurgent movement on Friday during an attempted attack on a senior official in Mogadishu, a police spokesman said.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb attack killed at least 10 people and wounded 40 at the funeral for a Shi'ite Muslim on Friday in the northwest Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to send some 3,000 extra peacekeepers to Democratic Republic of Congo to help protect civilians and end weeks of conflict in the turbulent east.

MACAU (Reuters) - On Macau's dusty Cotai strip, the cranes at the Las Vegas Sands' construction site stand idle at dusk atop the half-finished husks of three massive towers, while weary batches of construction workers, laid-off en masse, stream out of the site's turnstiles, many for the last time.