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Police questioned one of Israel's top religious officials, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, on Thursday on suspicion of bribery, fraud and money laundering, a police spokesman said. _0"> Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld gave no details about the allegations against Metzger and three other suspects but said the questioning had followed an undercover investigation. A spokesman for Metzger had no comment on the matter. Metzger is one of two state-appointed chief rabbis who oversee official religious policy and conduct state ceremonies. He has also been one of the Jewish state's main interlocutors with the pope.   Metzger represents Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestry originates in eastern Europe but he and Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who represents Jews of Middle Eastern origin, hold relatively little sway over ultra-Orthodox Jews who answer to their own rabbis. The 10-year term of both chief rabbis is set to end next month when elections for successors are due to be held. Metzger is the

Turkey warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday not to play politics with its European Union ambitions as Berlin blocked moves to open a new chapter in Ankara's EU membership talks next week. Turkey said failure to open the chapter would be a major setback in Ankara's relations with the bloc and one senior Turkish official said it would "draw a strong reaction".   Many EU capitals want to take the long-awaited step on Turkey's path towards the EU next Wednesday, arguing Europe should capitalize on Ankara's rising influence in the Middle East. But Germany has criticized Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's heavy-handed response to weeks of anti-government protests and refuses to agree to open a new negotiation area, potentially the first such step in three years. Germany blocked the opening of the new chapter, dealing with regional funding issues, at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Thursday, EU diplomats said. The EU has so far not cancelled ne

Guinea's opposition parties on Thursday pulled out of U.N.-mediated election talks with the government, accusing police and youths of attacking one of their leaders and his supporters. The negotiations aim to secure opposition participation in long-delayed parliamentary polls, which are meant to seal the mineral-rich nation's transition to civilian rule following a coup in 2008. Cellou Dalein Diallo, who heads the UFDG party, announced earlier on Thursday that he was pulling out of the process after the attack by stone-throwing youths and police near his home in the capital Conakry on Wednesday.   The opposition said 17 people were injured in the clashes. Other opposition parties decided to withdraw from the talks after a meeting on Thursday. "We decided to suspend our participation in the dialogue to protest against the aggression suffered yesterday by former Prime Minister Diallo," said opposition spokesman Aboubacar Sylla. He said the opposition would not r

Two people were killed on Thursday in a massive explosion and fire at a fireworks plant near Montreal, provincial police in Quebec said. _0"> The early-morning blast at the B.E.M. Fireworks factory rocked the suburb of Coteau-du-Lac about 37 miles southwest of the city. Police evacuated the surrounding area and temporarily closed a nearby highway. Residents were returning to their homes by midafternoon and roads had reopened, they said. The cause of the blast and subsequent blaze is not known. The company was not immediately available for comment. B.E.M. on its website says it has more than 25 years of experience "in the conception, production and performance of fireworks displays."   An amateur video of the explosion posted online showed a plume of smoke and debris billowing into the sky and a building in flames. The Montreal Gazette newspaper quoted eyewitnesses as saying there had been two explosions about one hour apart and that they felt the ground shake.

An Ethiopian opposition party called on Thursday for the government to scrap an anti-terrorism law it says is used to stifle dissent, threatening a repeat of protests that brought thousands onto the streets of Addis Ababa early this month. The rally on June 2, organized by another opposition group, was the first large-scale protest in the Ethiopian capital since a disputed 2005 election ended in street violence that killed 200 people.   Opposition groups in the Horn of Africa country were vibrant until that vote but have since largely retreated from public view, the result, analysts say, of harassment by the authorities and divisions within their ranks. They routinely accuse the government of intimidating and imprisoning their members and rigging elections against them. Ethiopia's 547-seat legislature has only one opposition member. The anti-terrorism law ratified in 2009 makes anyone caught publishing information that could induce readers into acts of terrorism liable to jai

Neighboring Iraq warned that Syria's civil war is tearing the Middle East apart and Lebanon's president urged his country's Hezbollah movement on Thursday to pull its fighters out of the conflict. After two years of fighting that has killed more than 93,000 people, Syria's turmoil is dragging its neighbors into a deadly confrontation between Shi'ite Iran supporting President Bashar al-Assad and Sunni Arab Gulf nations backing the Syrian rebels. The insurgents have suffered a series of setbacks on the battlefield and are besieged in the outskirts of Damascus facing a slow but steady advance by Assad's forces, which have begun to regain the upper hand.   In a sign of the devastation being wrought by the war, the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO put the six World Heritage Sites in Syria on its danger list of imperiled monuments on Thursday, urging international efforts to protect them. Both Iraq and Lebanon have suffered growing violence at home as the

Afghanistan and Pakistan traded accusations in the U.N. Security Council on Thursday over the whereabouts of Islamist extremists on their porous border as the United Nations described increased tensions between the neighbors as "unfortunate and dangerous." Afghanistan's U.N. envoy, Zahir Tanin, told a council debate on the situation in Afghanistan that "terrorist sanctuaries continue to exist on Pakistan's soil and some elements continue to use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy."   Pakistan's U.N. ambassador, Masood Khan, said "terrorists operate on both sides of the porous border" and many attacks against Pakistan were planned on Afghan soil. He said aggressive policing and border surveillance were needed. "I reject most emphatically Ambassador Tanin's argument - root, trunk and branch - that terrorist sanctuaries exist in Pakistan and some elements continue to use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy,"

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday urged Greece to speedily deliver on its bailout program, adding that doing so would ensure the country encounters "no financing problems." _0"> "If the review is concluded by the end of July, as expected, no financing problems will arise because the program is financed till end-July 2014," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in a statement. The Financial Times reported on Thursday the IMF might suspend aid to Greece next month unless euro zone leaders plugged a funding gap in the Greek rescue program.   Reuters reported on Wednesday that European foot-dragging could leave Greece some 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) short this year as some euro zone creditors were reluctant to roll over their Greek debt holdings. (Reporting by Alister Bull and Timothy Ahmann)

A suicide bomber killed seven people at an Iraqi vote counting center on Thursday evening, police said, hours after polls closed in two Sunni Muslim-dominated provinces. _0"> Most Iraqis voted for provincial councils in April but the Shi'ite-led government postponed elections in Anbar and Nineveh, citing security concerns after months of protests by the country's Sunni minority. The decision to delay voting in those governorates was criticized by the United States, which said it would compound a sense of Sunni marginalization that has fuelled a wave of violent unrest.   More than 1,000 people were killed in militant attacks in Iraq in May, making it the deadliest month since the height of sectarian bloodletting in 2006-07. The suicide bomber blew himself up at a vote-counting center in the city of Ramadi in Anbar province, killing seven people, four of whom were members of Iraq's electoral commission. Earlier on Thursday, a roadside bomb hit a bus carrying fi

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro announced the arrest of a senior tax official on Thursday in the latest move in what he says is a concerted effort to stamp out corruption in the South American OPEC nation. Maduro said the local director of the SENIAT tax authority in the coastal city of La Guaira had been caught by state intelligence agents with more than 4 million bolivars in cash (about $635,000 at the official exchange rate).   "We raided the luxury apartment in eastern Caracas where this bandit was doing business. He was caught in the act with his accomplices," said Maduro, who won a presidential election in April after the death of his mentor, Hugo Chavez. "He was walking around freely, personally taking bribes ... I call on everyone, the revolutionaries, the honest people, to support me in the fight against corruption." So far, Maduro's new drive against graft has snared several senior officials from state companies, organizations and govern

Britain and a representative of the Falkland Islands on Thursday rejected the idea of Pope Francis intervening in the long-running dispute with Argentina over the islands, which Buenos Aires claims are Argentine territory. _0"> In 1982 Britain sent its armed forces to the Falklands to repel an Argentine invasion of the contested South Atlantic archipelago, which Argentina calls Las Malvinas.   Just over 30 years later, memories of the conflict remain and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has mounted a campaign to renegotiate the islands' sovereignty, lobbying Pope Francis on the issue and rejecting a March referendum in which Falkland residents voted to remain a British Overseas Territory. "I think the last thing we need is religion inserted into this," said Mike Summers, a member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly. Mark Lyall Grant, Britain's U.N. ambassador, echoed his remarks, saying: "I certainly share the view that religion is n

The Mexican state of Veracruz was hit by heavy rains on Thursday after Tropical Storm Barry moved away from Mexico's major oil installations and weakened to a Tropical Depression. _0"> Only one of Mexico's three major oil-exporting ports - Dos Bocas - remained closed, but state oil monopoly Pemex said it was unaffected by the storm. Almost all of Mexico's crude oil exports, which totaled 1.275 million barrels per day (bpd) in April, are shipped to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States from the ports of Coatzacoalcos, Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas. The rains falling in the town of Actopan in Veracruz were more severe than those during Hurricane Karl, a Category 3 storm that battered the state in 2010, said town spokesman Rafael Alberto Moreno. There is a risk that the Actopan River, one of the biggest in the state, might overflow and townspeople were being evacuated from their homes, he said.   Barry is expected to lose strength during the course of Thu

A fresh effort to end Afghanistan's 12-year-old war was in limbo on Thursday after a diplomatic spat about the Taliban's new Qatar office delayed preliminary discussions between the United States and the Islamist insurgents. A meeting between U.S. officials and representatives of the Taliban had been set for Thursday in Qatar but Afghan government anger at the fanfare surrounding the opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state threw preparations into confusion. The squabble may set the tone for what could be arduous negotiations to end a conflict that has torn at Afghanistan's stability since the U.S. invasion following the September 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on U.S. targets.   Asked when the talks would now take place, a source in Doha said, "There is nothing scheduled that I am aware of." But the U.S. government said it was confident the U.S.-Taliban talks would soon go forward. "We anticipate these talks happening in the coming days," said St

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday urged Greece to speedily deliver on its bailout program, adding that doing so would ensure the country encounters "no financing problems." _0"> There is an ongoing review of the Greek bailout program, the IMF said on Thursday. "If the review is concluded by the end of July, as expected, no financing problems will arise because the program is financed till end-July 2014," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in a brief statement.   The Financial Times reported on Thursday the IMF might suspend aid to Greece next month unless euro zone leaders plugged a funding gap in the Greek rescue program. Reuters reported on Wednesday that European foot-dragging could leave Greece some 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) short this year as some euro zone creditors were reluctant to roll over their Greek debt holdings. Greece's creditors - euro zone countries, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - agree

South Sudan's vice president will visit Khartoum next week, Sudanese state media said on Thursday, marking the highest-level talks since Sudan threatened to cut off cross-border oil flows almost two weeks ago. _0"> Bilateral ties hit a new low this month when Sudan said it would halt oil exports that pass through Sudan for shipment abroad within 60 days unless Juba gave up support for rebels operating across the shared border. Juba denies the claims.   Since then, the African Union has been trying to defuse the situation, hoping a relative peace will hold between the neighbors, which split in 2011. The two, which fought decades of civil wars that ended in 2005, came close to war in April 2012 when tensions over oil pipeline fees and disputed territory escalated. Both countries agreed South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar will visit Sudan in one week, state news agency SUNA said, citing the Foreign Ministry. His trip had been planned for Sunday, but was delayed bec

Greece's small Democratic Left party could pull out of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's ruling coalition after talks to resume state television broadcasts collapsed, party officials said on Thursday, plunging the nation into fresh turmoil. Lawmakers from the leftist party - which was angered by the abrupt shutdown of broadcaster ERT last week - will meet at 0730 GMT (0330 ET) on Friday to decide whether to continue backing Samaras, who in turn warned he was ready to press ahead without them. "I want us to continue together as we started but I will move on either way," Samaras said in a televised statement, vowing to implement public sector reforms demanded by lenders. "Our aim is to conclude our effort to save the country, always with a four-year term in our sights. We hope for the Democratic Left's support."   Samaras's New Democracy party and its Socialist PASOK ally jointly have 153 deputies, a majority of three in the country's 300-memb

Brazil's biggest protests in two decades intensified on Thursday despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations, as 300,000 people took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro and hundreds of thousands more flooded other cities. Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, marchers demonstrated around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis.   "Twenty cents was just the start," read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central Sao Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions. In the capital, Brasilia, tens of thousands of protesters by early evening marched around the landmark modernist buildings that house Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential offices. The swelling tide of protests prompted President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a trip next

Sudanese people who have fled a recent surge in fighting in the western Darfur region live in terrible conditions and face a "humanitarian disaster," a U.N. human rights expert said after visiting the strife-torn region. _0"> War broke out in the western region of Darfur over a decade ago. Mainly African tribes took up arms against the Arab government in Khartoum, accusing it of marginalization.   Violence is down from a 2004-2005 peak but a new wave of fighting between the army, rebels and competing tribes has displaced since January about 300,000 people who live in camps across the vast arid region. "The difficult conditions facing the people ... especially women and children, were terrible," Mashood Adebayo Baderin said on Thursday in Khartoum after visiting a camp for displaced people in South Darfur. Baderin, a Nigerian asked by the United Nations Human Rights Council to assess the situation in Sudan, made his third trip to the African country. &

An estimated 1 million people took to the streets in cities across Brazil on Thursday as the country's biggest protests in two decades intensified despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations. Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, demonstrators marched around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis. While the protests remained mostly peaceful, the growing number of participants led to occasional outbursts of violence and vandalism in some cities. In central Rio de Janeiro, where 300,000 people marched, police afterwards chased looters and dispersed people crowding into surrounding areas. "Twenty cents was just the start," read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central São Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions. Police th

A U.S. congressman who has been blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng's main champion in Washington said people working for New York University have tried to keep him from meeting Chen, barging into a meeting on Capitol Hill and pulling Chen out on one occasion. U.S. Representative Chris Smith, an outspoken supporter of Chinese dissidents since the 1980s, described repeated instances of various people he says were from NYU interfering in his attempts to meet with Chen. NYU spokesman John Beckman in an email vigorously disputed the assertion that its representatives may have been involved in improper interference or control of Chen during his meetings with lawmakers and others, stressing that anyone present was there to help Chen at his request.   The encounters took place both in Washington and at NYU. Chen has been a research fellow at NYU Law School since he flew to the United States in May 2012 after he escaped from house arrest in his village in Shandong province and too

The head of a newly revived federal privacy oversight board pledged on Wednesday to be "as transparent and public as possible" as the board reviews recently exposed U.S. government secret surveillance programs. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which has been largely dormant since 2008, held its first full-fledged meeting on Wednesday after the Senate confirmed David Medine as its chairman last month.   The meeting was behind closed doors to review classified information about the vast and controversial Internet and phone monitoring programs. But Medine told Reuters that the board is aiming to hold a public event around July 9 to get legal insight from experts, academics and advocates. "Based on what we've learned so far, the board believes further questions are warranted," said Medine, who previously was a partner at the law firm WilmerHale and served as an associate director at the Federal Trade Commission. Still without formal email, a we

Investigators have found what they believe are human remains in a search of the former home of late New York mobster Jimmy Burke, suspected mastermind of the 1978 Lufthansa cargo heist, New York City Medical Examiner spokeswoman Ellen Borakove told Reuters on Thursday. _0"> She said the medical examiner's Office is checking material FBI agents scouring the Queens home found a day earlier, and it appears they are human remains.   "I think they are," Borakove said, declining to comment further. FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said once the remains are determined to be human, the next step is to identify the dead person. Burke, also known as "Jimmy the Gent," died in prison in 1996 while serving time for the murder of a drug dealer. The home belongs to his daughter. Robert De Niro played a character inspired by Burke in Martin Scorsese's 1990 hit movie "Goodfellas". The search inside Burke's one-time house was unrelated to an FBI dig in