A leading international rights group on Sunday accused Myanmar security forces of supporting some of the brutal anti-Muslim violence last month that forced 35,000 people from torched homes. The government rejected the allegations, which came one day before President Barack Obama’s visit to the Southeast Asian nation after a year and a half of unprecedented democratic reforms there.
Another US military serviceman arrested on Okinawa
Japanese police have arrested a U.S. Marine on suspicion of trespassing on the southern island of Okinawa amid anger over military crimes and demands for stricter regulations for U.S. troops.
Home hero Scott wins Australian Masters in Melbourne
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Local favorite Adam Scott won the $1 million Australian Masters on Sunday, beating Briton Adam Poulter by four strokes at Melbourne’s Kingston Heath Golf Club. The world number five shot a five-under 67 on a windy day to finish with an 17-under total of 271 and clinch his first tournament win for the year after a frustrating season of near-misses. With daylight separating Poulter and Scott from the rest of the field, the final round was reduced to a match-play battle, with the Australian raising the pressure with a pair of birdies in his opening holes to snatch the lead. …
Golf-Home hero Scott wins Australian Masters in Melbourne
MELBOURNE, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Local favourite Adam Scott won the $1 million Australian Masters on Sunday, beating Briton Adam Poulter by four strokes at Melbourne’s Kingston Heath Golf Club. The world number five shot a five-under 67 on a windy day to finish with an 17-under total of 271 and clinch his first tournament win for the year after a frustrating season of near-misses. …
Israel attacks Hamas media operations in Gaza
The Israeli military widened its range of targets in the Gaza Strip on Sunday to include the media operations of the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers, sending its aircraft to attack two buildings used by both Hamas and foreign media outlets. 
Rescue crews in Dubai have evacuated a 34-story residential tower after a fire gutted portions of the building. There was no immediate word on casualties. 
Diplomats say Southeast Asian leaders have decided to launch a human rights declarati on despite last-minute calls for a postponement by critics, including Washington, who say the pact contains loopholes that can allow atrocities to continue. 
RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has undergone successful back surgery at a hospital in the capital, Riyadh, to tighten a loose ligament, the royal court sa id in a statement carried by state media on Sunday. The stability of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a key U.S. ally, is of global concern. The kingdom holds more than a fifth of world crude reserves and is the birthplace of Islam. "A surgery was performed on the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, at the National Guard's King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh on Saturday … … 
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli warplanes struck Gaza militants for a fifth straight day on Sunday and its military prepared for a possible ground invasion, though Egypt saw "some ind ications" of a truce ahead. Forty-seven Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 12 children, have been killed in Israel's raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens. … 
A speeding train that crashed into a bus carrying Egyptian children to their kindergarten on Saturday killed 51 and prompted a wave of anger against a government under mounting pressure to rectify the former regime's legacy of neglect. 
DUBLIN (Reuters) – At least 5,000 people marched to the offices of Ireland's socially conservative prime minister on Saturday to call for clearer guidelin es on abortion following the death of a woman denied a termination. It was the largest of a wave of protests across Ireland in recent days in response to the death of 31-year old Indian woman Savita Halappanavar who died of septicaemia following a miscarriage 17 weeks into her pregnancy. … 
ROME (Reuters) – Diesel brand founder Renzo Rosso is considering expanding into jewelery and launching a new project in Japan to fuel growth at his fashion group despite the global economic turmoil. Known as the "king of high-end casualwear", the rockstar-looking businessman is one of the most dynamic figures in a fashion industry threatened by a slowdown in its core markets. A painful recession in southern Europe and a slowdown in China are forcing European brands to come up with new ideas to lure consumers back into their stores. … 
PARIS (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people, joined by Catholic church l eaders, marched in cities across France on Saturday to protest against government plans to legalize same-sex marriage. Demonstrators, holding banners with slogans such as "don't touch civil marriage", "all born from the union of a man and a woman" and "one father + one mother for all children", took to the streets in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other major towns. … 
For President Barack Obama, expanding U.S. influence in Asia is more than just countering China or opening up new markets to American businesses. It's also about building his legacy. 
With pinpoint airstrikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip and Iranian-made rockets flying deep into Israel, the current conflagration between Israel and Hamas reflects the vast changes that have taken place on the battlefield in just four years. 
Israel's new offensive against the Gaza Strip has turned into a political bonanza for the territory's Hamas rulers, while sidelining Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, their Western-backed rival in the West Bank. 
About 10,000 people have marched through Dublin and observed a minute's silence in memory of the Indian dentist who died of blood poisoning in an Irish hospital after being denied an abortion. 
France on Saturday welcom ed a member of the Syrian opposition as the country's ambassador, a bold bid to confer legitimacy on the week-old opposition coalition and encourage other Western nations to follow suit. 
In four days of fighting against Gaza-based militants, Israel has used a missile-defense system called "Iron Dome" to intercept rockets fired at populated civilian areas. It says the new home-grown system has been a tremendous success. As of Saturday evening, the military said it had shot down some 240 incoming rockets, more than half the number of projectiles launched into Israel since Wednesday. 
Groups opposed to President Francois Hollande's plans to legalize gay marriage and gay adoptions took to the streets Saturday across France. 
Sydney Gregory has never met her father, an Olympic silver medalist in fencing who defected from the Cuban team at a tournament in Lisbon in 2002 when she was 15 days old. But he recently rang from Italy with good news: Papa's coming home to visit. 
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak said he would resign from the government after unexpectedly losing a battle for the leadership o f the junior coalition partner on Saturday, but there was no threat to the stability of the coalition. Janusz Piechocinski, a 52-year-old member of parliament who beat Pawlak by 547 to 530 votes in the election at the PSL congress, said he wanted to keep the coalition with the Civic Platform (PO) intact. Pawlak, who is also the economy minister in Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government, had led the PSL for seven years. … 
MILAN (Reuters) – Prime Minister Mario Monti rejected suggestions on Saturday that Italy should seek aid from its euro zone partners to bind a new g overnment to strict reform conditions after elections likely to be held in March. Monti's comments, in a panel discussion at Milan's Bocconi University, follow growing speculation that he might try to use an aid program to guarantee that his broad economic agenda is continued once his term in office ends. … 
Pakistan is secretly racing to develop its own armed drones, frustrated with U.S. refusals to provide the aircraft, but is struggling in its initial tests with a lack of precision munitions and advanced targeting technolog y. 
TEL AVIV/GAZA (Reuters) – Gaza's Hamas movement wanted a showdown with Israel because its leaders are high on something called the Arab Spring and competing to become martyrs to the Palestinian cause. Or, from another perspective, cynical Israeli politicians think a Gaza offensive will be a walkover that will assure re-election in January and at the same time provide a death-blow to Palestinian statehood moves at the United Nations. … 
CADIZ, Spain (Reuters) – Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Saturday that a draft European budget was unacceptable. The proposed seven-year budget would turn Spain into a net contributor to the EU for the first time by cutting aid and subsidies. European Union chief Herman Van Rompuy proposed a compromise draft EU budget on Wednesday, aiming to go part way to meeting spending cut demands from Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. Van Rompuy's draft would cut 80 billion euros out of the roughly 1 trillion euro ($1. … 
Greeks took to the streets by the tens of thousands on Saturday to commemorate the 39th anniversary of a deadly student uprising against the country's former dictatorship. 
Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with about 300 airstrikes Saturday and shot down a Palestinian rocket fired at Tel Aviv, the military said, widening a blistering assault to include the Hamas prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. 
Activists say Syrian rebels have taken control of an airport in the country's east along the border with Iraq after days of h eavy fighting with the forces of President Bashar Assad. 
HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) – Germany's Greens party re-elected its two party leaders on Saturday with overwhelming majorities that put to rest speculat ion of a schism between its centrist and left wings ahead of next year's election. Claudia Roth, a left-winger defeated a week ago in her bid to become one of two lead candidates in 2013, was elected to another two years as party co-chair with 88.5 percent backing. … 
MANILA (Reuters) – An agreement among Greece's international creditors on reducing its large debt pile should be "rooted in reality and not in wishful thinking," the head of t he International Monetary Fund said ahead of a tense meeting with European leaders. Cutting short a visit to Asia to attend a Eurogroup meeting on Tuesday in Brussels, Christine Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, told Reuters it was important that an agreement provide a lasting solution to Greece's debt to avoid prolonged uncertainty and further damage to the Greek economy. … 
A revolutionary Israeli rocket-defense system knocked down an incoming rocket fired by Gaza militants over the skies of this bustling metropolis on Saturday, eliciting cheers from relieved residents huddled in fear. 
Sierra Leoneans chose Saturday between keeping an incumbent president who has expanded health care and paved roads or electing an opposition candidate to lead this war-scarred nation still recovering a decade later despite its mineral riches. 
DUBAI/JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Barclays did not make any "illegal payment" to win a banking license in Saudi Arabia, the bank said in a statement in response to a newspaper report last week that said U.S. authorities were looking at whether improper payments were made. The Financ ial Times had reported on November 10 that the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) was investigating whether Barclays made any improper payments to win a banking license in Saudi Arabia to operate a wealth-management arm and investment bank, citing people familiar with the investigation. … 
A top Afghan peace mediator hailed Pakistan's recent decision to free nine members of the Taliban who favor negotiations, saying Saturday it was a sign Islamabad is willing to help bring the militant group to the table and end Afghanistan's 11-year-old war. 
Israeli officials say Palestinian militants have fired a rocket toward the metropolis of Tel Aviv for a third straight day. 
BEIJING (Reuters) – China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping has praised his predecessor Hu Jintao for voluntarily stepping down from both his party and military posts, promisin g to uphold his legacy of defense modernization, state media said on Saturday. Hu, who remains China's president until March's parliament session, relinquished the much more powerful post of Communist Party boss on Thursday at the close of the once-every-five-year congress that selects the party's new leadership line-up. …