Body of India rape victim cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman, whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India, arrived back in New Delhi on Sunday and was cremated at a private ceremony.

Scuffles broke out in central Delhi between police and protesters who say the government is doing too little to protect women. But the 2,000-strong rally was confined to a single area, unlike last week when protests raged up throughout the capital.

Riot police manned barricades along streets leading to India Gate war memorial - a focal point for demonstrators - and, at another gathering point - the centuries-old Jantar Mantar - protesters held banners reading "We want justice!" and "Capital punishment".

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim of the December 16 gang rape died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

The medical student had suffered brain injuries and massive internal injuries in the attack and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, police figures show. Reported rape cases rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to government data.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death and face the death penalty if convicted.

In Kolkata, one of India's four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.

She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.

Police declined to give any further details. One officer told Reuters no criminal investigation had yet been launched.

"MISOGYNY"

The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was seen arriving at the airport when the plane carrying the woman's body from Singapore landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh's convoy was also there.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body from the airport to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Her body was then taken to a crematorium and cremated. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman's family, New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off guard. It took a week for the prime minister to make a statement, infuriating many protesters. Last weekend they fought pitched battles with police.

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, though it is too early to say whether the protesters can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon added his voice to those demanding change, calling for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".

Commentators and sociologists say the incident earlier this month has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

Newspapers raised doubts about the commitment of both male politicians and the police to protecting women.

"Would the Indian political system and class have been so indifferent to the problem of sexual violence if half or even one-third of all legislators were women?" the Hindu newspaper asked.

The Indian Express said it was more complicated than realizing that the police force was understaffed and underpaid.

"It is geared towards dominating citizens rather than working for them, not to mention being open to influential interests," the newspaper said. "It reflects the misogyny around us, rather than actively fighting for the rights of citizens who happen to be female."

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Diksha Madhokin New Delhi and Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Monti's reform path faces test beyond Italy elections

ROME (Reuters) - Mario Monti declared "mission accomplished" when he resigned as Italy's prime minister, having seen off the debt crisis that loomed as he took office just over a year ago but 2013 will test whether he has laid the foundations for lasting economic change.

Elections on February 24-25 will give Italian voters their first chance to decide whether they want to stick to the broad course he has set or turn to a growing chorus of politicians who have attacked his austerity medicine.

Monti's decision to enter the race himself has put his reform agenda at the heart of the campaign and will have effects far outside Italy, the euro zone's third-largest economy, which took the single currency to the brink of collapse last year.

Former European Commissioner Monti, favored by the markets, the business establishment and even the Catholic church, has insisted that the election must be about creating agreement on policy rather than on any individual.

In that sense, the true test of his success may be not whether he wins a second term but whether he has succeeded in convincing the other parties and the country as a whole to stay with the liberalizing agenda he has laid out.

That remains uncertain, despite the plaudits he earned abroad for his handling of the crisis, as ordinary Italians have seen their living standards fall and unemployment rise relentlessly.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD), the favorites to win the election, have supported Monti in parliament and say they will maintain the broad course he has set, while putting more emphasis on growth and helping workers and the poor.

But some on the left of the party and among its trade union allies say inequality has risen under Monti.

On the right, Silvio Berlusconi accuses Monti of taking orders from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and penalizing middle class Italians for the benefit of German banks. He has called for sweeping tax cuts to stimulate growth.

The runaway success of the anti-establishment comic Beppe Grillo and his 5-Star Movement, which wants to hold a referendum to decide whether to leave the euro, has also underlined the widespread mood of disillusion now deeply anchored in Italy.

"I don't have any confidence in my country, absolutely not," said Rosaria Resciniti, one of thousands of young people lining up to enter a competition for a job as primary school teacher in Rome.

"It is a country for old people. We should all leave and leave the country to the pensioners," she said.

UNEMPLOYMENT EMERGENCY

Monti himself acknowledged the disaffection on Friday when he confirmed that he would be joining the election campaign as head of a centrist alliance committed to continuing his reforms.

"Fortunately, it seems that the financial emergency is over, but there is another emergency which is just as serious or even more so, which is the unemployment emergency, especially as regards youth unemployment and the lack of growth," he said.

Helped by the promise of European Central Bank support, the main gauge of investor confidence, the spread between yields on Italian 10 year government bonds and safer German Bunds has narrowed from the crisis levels of more than 550 basis points hit when Monti took office to about 320 points.

But the broader indicators of economic health have got worse, a fact constantly pointed out by critics such as Berlusconi and Grillo, who say the tax hikes and spending cuts imposed to calm the markets have dragged Italy into a recessionary spiral.

The economy has contracted for five consecutive quarters and is estimated to have shrunk by 2.4 percent in 2012. Public debt has topped the symbolic 2 trillion euro level, corruption and waste are still rampant, and youth unemployment is over 36 percent.

Italy has had the euro zone's most sluggish economy for more than a decade, and whether any of the leaders fighting the election can turn that around quickly is doubtful, as one of the possible ministers in a centre-left government acknowledged.

"This crisis will last throughout the whole of the next parliament at least," deputy PD leader Enrico Letta told Reuters last month.

The task will be greatly complicated if market sentiment turns against Italy as it did in 2011, when tensions in the Berlusconi government raised doubts about its commitment to budget discipline.

Monti, seen outside Italy at least as a guarantor of stability, has said he was "not a man sent by Providence", but whether he himself will be involved in the next government has been one of the main questions hanging over the race.

His sober, professorial style came as a welcome relief to international investors and European partners unnerved by the turmoil and scandal surrounding Berlusconi as bond markets crashed in the summer of 2011.

But if opinion polls are confirmed on election day, it is difficult to see how he could become prime minister without resorting to the kind of backroom deals that characterized the shaky coalitions of the postwar period, when governments often survived no more than months or even weeks.

The most recent opinion poll gave centre-left PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani support of 36 percent, with Monti on 23.3 percent, ahead of both Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) and Grillo's 5-Star Movement.

Monti's involvement in the election has ruled him out as a candidate for president of the Republic, a post that would have given him significant behind-the-scenes influence.

That leaves the possibility of becoming finance minister in a Bersani government, though there has been little sign of enthusiasm either from his side or from the PD, which has maintained a respectful tone towards Monti but now clearly sees him as a political adversary.

GROWTH AGENDA

Beyond the issue of personalities, the deep-rooted problems afflicting the Italian economy will be a formidable challenge to any new government.

"The situation in Italy is not easy, there are too many centres of power where everybody blocks everything. Our infrastructure isn't working and we've got corruption all over," said Renzo Rosso, head of the group behind Diesel jeans, one of the Italian companies that has managed to find a way past the obstacles in its home market to create a global success.

All the main parties in the race have called for more emphasis on creating growth, which along with its towering public debt has long been Italy's Achilles heel.

Monti's own 25-page agenda lays out a range of answers, such as taxing consumption and large fortunes more than companies and workers, and opening up markets to more competition and breaking down the suffocating power of special interest groups.

Turning such ideas into practice and convincing the public to go along with them is another matter.

Reflecting on her time in office, Elsa Fornero, an academic expert recruited into Monti's technocrat government whose labor reform plans were largely stymied by resistance from both unions and employers, said she had learned the difference the hard way.

"In this period of almost a year now, I have been able to measure the distance between being a professor and being a minister," she told foreign reporters last month.

"It's something completely different. I have been more used to formulating rational solutions, but the rationality of a solution is not enough because society is more differentiated and doesn't just live on rationality."

(Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala, Cristiano Corvino and Antonella Ciancio; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shi'ites

PESHWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.

The United States has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.

Twenty Shi'ite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government's failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was "indifferent" to the killings.

Pakistan, seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize the region before NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.

Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.

At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.

Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60 km (35 miles) west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.

"The bus next to us caught on fire immediately," said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. "We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat."

Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.

CONCERN OVER EXTREMIST SUNNI GROUPS

International attention has focused on al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

But Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist Sunni groups, lead by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) are emerging as a major destabilizing force in a campaign designed to topple the government.

Their strategy now, the officials say, is to carry out attacks on Shi'ites to create the kind of sectarian tensions that pushed countries like Iraq to the brink of civil war.

As elections scheduled for next year approach, Pakistanis will be asking what sort of progress their leaders have made in the fight against militancy and a host of other issues, such as poverty, official corruption and chronic power cuts.

Pakistan's Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group's leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.

In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.

"They were tied up and blindfolded," Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.

"They were lined up and shot in the head," said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.

One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.

Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.

"We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn't make any demand for their release because we don't spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting," he said.

The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents' ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.

This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar's airport on December 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on December 22.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN and Gul Yousufzai in QUETTA; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ron Popeski)

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No end to Syria war if sides refuse to talk: envoy

AZAZ, Syria/CAIRO (Reuters) - The international peace negotiator for Syria pleaded with outside countries on Sunday to push the warring parties to the table for talks, warning that the country would become a failed state ruled by warlords unless diplomacy is given a chance.

Lakhdar Brahimi, who inherited the seemingly impossible task of bringing an end to the war after his predecessor Kofi Annan resigned in frustration in July, has launched an intensified diplomatic campaign to win backing for a peace plan.

He spent five days this week in Damascus, where he met President Bashar al-Assad. On Saturday he visited Assad's main international backers in Moscow, and on Sunday he travelled to Cairo, where President Mohamed Mursi has emerged as one of Assad's most vocal Arab opponents.

"The problem is that both sides aren't speaking to one another," he said. "This is where help is needed from outside."

Brahimi's peace plan - inherited from Annan and agreed to in principle in Geneva in June by countries that both oppose and support Assad - has the seemingly fatal flaw of making no mention of whether Assad would leave power.

The Syrian leader's opponents - who have seized much of the north and east of the country in the past six months - say they will not cease fire or join any talks unless Assad goes and have largely dismissed Brahimi's initiative.

But Brahimi says the plan is the only one on the table, and predicts "hell" if countries do not push both sides to talk.

"The situation in Syria is bad, very, very bad, and it is getting worse, and the pace of deterioration is increasing," Brahimi told reporters.

"People are talking about Syria being split into a number of small states ... This is not what will happen. What will happen is Somalization: warlords." Somalia has been without effective central government since civil war broke out there in 1991.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in Syria's 21-month war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began sweeping the Arab world two years ago.

The rebels are mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, fighting against Assad, a member of the Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect, giving the war a dangerous sectarian dimension.

The rebels increasingly believe that their military successes of the past half year are bringing victory within reach. But Assad's forces still hold the densely-populated southwest of the country, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast in the northwest.

The government also holds airbases scattered throughout the country, and has an arsenal including jets, helicopters, missiles and artillery that the fighters cannot match.

ASSAD FORCES SEIZE HOMS DISTRICT

Government troops scored a victory on Saturday after several days of fighting, seizing a Sunni district in Homs, a central town that controls the vital road linking Damascus to the coast.

Opposition activists said on Sunday that many people had been killed in the Deir Baalbeh district after it was captured, although it was not immediately possible to verify claims that a "massacre" had taken place. The opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights said it documented the summary execution of 17 men.

"They were young and old, mostly refugees who had fled to Deir Baalbeh from central parts of Homs," it said in a statement. Footage taken by activists showed the bodies of eight men with what appeared to be bullet wounds in the face and head.

With severe restrictions by Syrian authorities on independent media in place since the revolt broke out in March last year, the footage could not be confirmed.

Najati Tayyara, a veteran opposition campaigner from Homs in contact with the city, told Reuters residents believed the death toll was as high as 260, although the area was sealed off by government forces and allied militia.

"I am afraid that we have seen a massacre in Deir Baalbeh and a military setback for the rebels because of their lack of organization. They have been in need of ammunition for a long time and it finally ran out," he said.

"Communications are difficult and we are trying to piece together what happened in Deir Baalbeh. We so far know that regime forces went in after the rebels retreated and summarily executed dozens of people, including civilians."

Tayyara said the fall of Deir Baalbeh undermined supply lines to rebel held areas inside the city.

Bilal al-Homsi, an opposition activist in Old Homs, said MiG warplanes bombarded the area overnight and medium range rockets and hit the area of al-Khalidiya, a rebel-held Sunni district.

In the north, opposition activists said fighters had surrounded an air defense base near Aleppo airport, south of the contested city. Fighting raged in the area and warplanes bombed rebel positions near the base to try and break the siege.

In the northern city of Azaz, where activists said 11 people were killed when air strikes destroyed six homes, gravediggers were already digging graves for whichever victims will be next.

"We know the plane is coming to hit us, so we're being prepared," said Abu Sulaiman, one of a few men digging at the Sheikh Saad cemetery.

"Massacres are happening. We're putting every two or three bodies together. We've been working and digging since 6 in the morning. We're going to dig 10 new graves today," he said.

"We're preparing them. Maybe we'll be buried in them."

Fida, a 15-year-old girl in a green scarf and purple coat looked on as her father shoveled dirt from the gravesite. The dead from the previous day's attacks included friends she recognized when their shrouds were pulled back.

"Yesterday was the first time I uncovered blankets to discover that my friends had died," she said, as young children near the cemetery played hopscotch on the streets and kicked stones about.

"I was just about to go visit them about a half hour before the strike hit," she said. "In the end I visited them when they were dead."

(Adiditional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Ayman Samir and Tom Perry in Cairo and Peter Graff in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Chavez suffers new post-surgery complications

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is suffering more complications linked to a respiratory infection that hit him after his fourth cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president said in a somber broadcast on Sunday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro flew to Cuba to visit Chavez in the hospital as supporters' fears grew for the ailing 58-year-old socialist leader, who has not been seen in public nor heard from in three weeks.

Chavez had already suffered unexpected bleeding caused by the six-hour operation on December 11 for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area. Officials said doctors then had to fight a respiratory infection.

"Just a few minutes ago we were with President Chavez. He greeted us and he himself talked about these complications," Maduro said in the broadcast, adding that the third set of complications arose because of the respiratory infection.

"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is confronting this difficult situation."

Maduro, flanked by his wife Attorney-General Cilia Flores, Chavez's daughter Rosa Virginia and her husband, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said he would remain in Havana while Chavez's condition evolved.

He said Chavez's condition remained "delicate" - a term he has used since the day after the surgery, when he warned Venezuelans to prepare for difficult times and urged them to keep the president in their prayers.

"We trust that the avalanche of love and solidarity with Comandante Chavez, together with his immense will to live and the care of the best medical specialists, will help our president win this new battle," Maduro said.

A senior government official in Caracas said the New Year's Eve party in the capital's central Plaza Bolivar had been canceled. "Everyone pray for strength for our comandante to overcome this difficult moment," the official, Jacqueline Faria, added on Twitter after making the announcement.

OIL-FINANCED SOCIALISM

Chavez's resignation for health reasons, or his death, would upend politics in the OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.

His condition is being closely watched around Latin America, especially in other nations run by leftist governments, from Cuba to Bolivia, which depend on subsidized fuel shipments and other aid from Venezuela for their fragile economies.

Chavez has not provided details of the cancer that was first diagnosed in June 2011, leading to speculation among Venezuela's 29 million people and criticism from opposition leaders.

Chavez's allies have openly discussed the possibility that he may not be able to return to Venezuela to be inaugurated for his third six-year term as president on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.

Senior "Chavista" officials have said the people's wishes were made clear when the president was re-elected in October, and that the constitution makes no provision for what happens if a president-elect cannot take office on January 10.

Opposition leaders say any postponement would be just the latest sign that Chavez is not in a fit state to govern and that new elections should be called to choose his replacement. If Chavez had to step down, new elections would be called within 30 days.

Opposition figures believe they have a better shot against Maduro, who was named earlier this month by Chavez as his heir apparent, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.

Any constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era in the country that boasts the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Maduro has become the face of the government in Chavez's absence, imitating the president's bombastic style and sharp criticism of the United States and its "imperialist" policies.

In Sunday's broadcast, Maduro said Chavez sent New Year greetings to all Venezuelans, "especially the children, whom he carries in his heart always."

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Mario Naranjo; Editng by Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)

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Arab officials visit cash-strapped Palestinian territory

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Top Arab officials paid a rare visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday to discuss a Palestinian financial crisis that President Mahmoud Abbas hopes will be eased by Arab donations.

Arab League Chief Nabil Elaraby and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr congratulated the Palestinians on a successful United Nations status upgrade last month, but stopped short of promising the badly-needed funds.

"Palestine is in need of material and political support," Elaraby told a news conference in the Palestinians' de facto capital of Ramallah.

"Arab countries agreed at their Baghdad summit (in March) for an Arab safety net of $100 million dollars each month, but unfortunately none of this has been achieved yet," he said.

Palestinian were cheered by a strong majority in the United Nations recognizing them as an "observer state" on November 29 but have struggled to get Arab support to make up $100 million in shortfalls left by Israeli sanctions following the U.N. move.

Elaraby is the first Arab League Chief to visit Ramallah, but he and other prominent Arab and Islamic leaders, including the Egyptian prime minister, met Abbas's Palestinian Hamas rivals in Gaza during their brief war with Israel last month.

QATARI LEADER

Hamas, which split from the West Bank after it seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, also won a diplomatic coup by receiving Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar, who pledged $400 million in aid for the impoverished territory in October.

The emir postponed a visit to Ramallah he had announced this month, disappointing West Bank officials who had hoped he would arrive bearing gifts of cash.

The Gaza visits broke years of diplomatic quarantine for the Islamist Hamas group, which refuses to recognize Israel or relinquish its arms, and increased the isolation of the dovish, Western-backed Ramallah government.

West Bank officials have watched with worry as uprisings in the Arab world divert attention from their diplomatic strategy, which has failed to achieve an independent Palestinian state.

Hamas militants, by contrast, have been heartened as fellow-Islamists rise to power in Egypt and elsewhere.

Abbas has accused Israel of "piracy" after it withheld customs revenues it collects on the Palestinians' behalf, citing months of utilities bills Ramallah owes Israeli companies.

The financial crisis has forced the Palestinian Authority to delay salary payments to West Bank employees, who have gone on strike in protest. Abbas has responded by saying he might give up power and compel Israel to take on the Palestinians' affairs.

"Sit in the chair here instead of me, take the keys, and you will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority," Abbas warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with the Israeli Haaretz newspaper this week.

"I won't do anything as long as there are diplomatic negotiations," he said. "But if the stalemate continues...what's left for us to do?"

(Reporting By Noah Browning and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Egypt lets building material cross its border into Gaza

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Islamist-led Egypt allowed building materials into Gaza via the Rafah crossing on Saturday for the first time since Hamas seized control of the Palestinian enclave in 2007, an Egyptian border official said.

It was part of a shipment of building materials donated by the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, which has pledged $400 million to finance reconstruction in Gaza. The Islamist group Hamas has run Gaza since driving out its rivals in the Palestinian Authority.

Israel tightened a blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state, took power there.

Hamas has been hoping that the rise to power in Egypt of a fellow-Islamist government sympathetic to its cause will lead to a full opening of Rafah to commercial goods. Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi sent his prime minister to Gaza last month to show solidarity during a brief war between Hamas and Israel.

The Rafah border with Egypt is the only Gaza crossing not controlled by Israel, which withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. Cairo has restricted the use of Rafah crossing to travelers and medical relief, giving rise to extensive smuggling into Gaza through tunnels under the border.

The border official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the Egyptian authorities had agreed to allow the Qatari-donated material into Gaza, the shipment did not mark the start of the full opening of the crossing sought by Hamas.

An official in Gaza's Hamas government said it was a positive step. "We hope that Egypt will open this crossing permanently for goods so our people can meet their needs," said Ehab al-Ghsain, head of the Hamas government media office.

Palestinians said it was the first time anything other than people and medical supplies had been allowed in since 2006. Six truck loads of building material had crossed on Saturday, with more expected later in the day, the Egyptian official said.

The government of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who was removed from power by a popular uprising nearly two years ago, looked on Hamas with suspicion bordering on outright hostility.

Leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to the presidency in a June election, had said they backed the idea of opening Rafah to trade. But Mursi has taken no public steps in that direction since taking office.

Cairo has long feared that opening Rafah fully might prompt Israel to close permanently the other crossings with Gaza, which it captured from Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war.

Ghsain said: "Rafah had been closed for goods for so many years and we always hoped such a policy would change, without exempting the Israeli occupation from their responsibilities. Israel must end the closure and reopen all crossings with Gaza."

(Reporting by Yousri Mohamed in Ismailia and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Syria doomed to "hell" without political deal: envoy

MOSCOW/AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - The international mediator touting a peace plan for Syria warned on Saturday of "hell" if the warring sides shun talks, and Moscow accused enemies of President Bashar al-Assad of blocking negotiations.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in Moscow that responsible people inside and outside Syria should "help the Syrians stop their descent into more and more bloodshed, into more and more chaos and perhaps a failed state".

Efforts to find a negotiated solution to a 21-month-old war that has killed some 45,000 people have floundered, with the opposition, buoyed by rebel military advances, demanding that Assad be excluded from power before any talks can proceed.

In a sign that the war may not quickly be won, government forces - in retreat for much of the past few months - scored a victory in the strategically important central city of Homs, where they pushed rebels from a district after days of fighting.

But in the north, Syria's national airline had to cancel a flight from Cairo to Aleppo, according to Egyptian airline officials, due to insecurity at an airport that rebels have declared as a target and where explosions were heard overnight.

Brahimi spent five days in Damascus this week as part of a push to promote a months-old peace plan that calls for a transitional government, without specifying Assad's role.

"If the only alternative is really hell or a political process, then all of us must work ceaselessly for a political process," Brahimi said in Moscow. "It is difficult, it is very complicated, but there is no other choice."

Western and some Arab states that back the revolt are hoping that Russia, Assad's main international protector and arms supplier, will drop its support.

"WRONG, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE"

They have been searching for signs that Moscow, an ally of Syria since Assad's father seized power 42 years ago, is changing its stance - so far mostly in vain.

After meeting Brahimi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov firmly repeated Moscow's position that Assad's removal cannot be a precondition for negotiations, calling the Syrian opposition's refusal to talk to Damascus a "dead end".

"When the opposition says only Assad's exit will allow it to begin a dialogue about the future of its own country, we think this is wrong, we think this is rather counterproductive," he said. "The costs of this precondition are more and more lives of Syrian citizens."

Having seized much of northern and eastern Syria over the last six months, Assad's opponents seem even less likely to accept talks with the government now than when the Geneva agreement first flopped in June.

Rebels say they expect to win the war on the ground. But if both sides intend to fight to the bitter end, the longest and deadliest war to have emerged from last year's Arab revolts may have a long time left to run its course.

Despite its setbacks, the government still has the bigger arsenal and a potent air force. It controls most of the densely populated southwest of Syria, the Mediterranean coast, most of the main north-south highway and military bases countrywide.

In Azaz, a rebel-held town in the north, Abu Badri, 38, surveyed the damage of his home two hours after it was destroyed in an airstrike. He said four children and an elderly man were among the dead. Relatives trying to salvage what they could carried out drinking glasses, a fridge and an oven.

"We'll have to find a tent to stay in near the border with Turkey. What else can we do?" he said. At least six houses were destroyed by two bombs on the town, which was just beginning to recover from earlier bombardment by Assad's forces.

Eleven people were killed according to local activist Abu Zaid, who saw new graves dug in the cemetery nearby.

Blood was spattered on the bricks that littered the area. A child's teddy bear lay in the wreckage. A bulldozer cleared the heavy rubble while young boys dug through the debris with their hands, hoping to find people still alive.

In the central city of Homs, government forces pushed insurgents from the Deir Ba'alba district after several days of fierce fighting, opposition activists said.

Homs controls the strategically vital highway linking Damascus to the Alawite heartland on the coast. There were unconfirmed reports dozens of rebel fighters had been killed, said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the British-based, pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.

WEST SEEKS RUSSIAN CHANGE OF HEART

The United States and its allies hope a change of heart in Moscow could prod Assad to yield power, much as Russia's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.

Lavrov noted that Assad has repeatedly said he would not go, adding that Russia "does not have the ability to change this".

Brahimi's peace plan has stalled on the demand by the opposition that Assad be excluded from any transitional government, a precondition also backed by the United States, European countries and most Arab states.

Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi, repeating the most populous Arab country's public support for the rebellion, said there was "no place for the current regime in the future of Syria".

"The revolution of the Syrian people, which we support, will go forward, God willing, to realize its goals of freedom."

Most Arab states are ruled by Sunni Muslims, who form the majority in Syria and are the foundation of the revolt against Assad, a member of the Shi'ite-linked Alawite minority sect.

Brahimi's plan was formally agreed in Geneva in June by world powers, but Washington and Moscow argued from the outset over the core question of whether the plan meant Assad must go.

In Damascus, Brahimi advocated a transitional government "with all the powers of the state", but his wording did not exclude a role for Assad.

The envoy's credibility with the rebels appears to have withered. In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up banners ridiculing Brahimi with English obscenities.

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," the rebel chief in Aleppo province, Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, said on Friday.

Moscow has invited the main opposition leader, Moaz Alkhatib, to visit for talks, but Alkhatib rejected the invitation outright on Friday, instead demanding Lavrov apologize for Russia's support of Assad. He did, however, say he could meet Russian officials in a third country.

Brahimi said a political solution had to be based on the Geneva agreement negotiated by his predecessor, Kofi Annan, shortly before Annan quit in frustration at the divisions among veto-wielding powers on the U.N. Security Council.

"There may be one or two little adjustments to make here and there, but it is a reasonable basis for a political process that will help the Syrian people," Brahimi said of the Geneva plan.

Brahimi is to meet senior U.S. and Russian diplomats together in the coming weeks. Two such meetings this month produced no signs of a breakthrough.

(Additional reporting by Peter Graff and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Tom Perry in Cairo; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Britain heading in the right direction: Cameron

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday Britain was heading in the right direction on all its major issues and could look forward to 2013 with realism and optimism.

In a New Year video message, Cameron said the country had made progress on cutting its budget deficit, reforming welfare and improving school standards.

Deficit reduction and preserving Britain's credit rating have been goals for the coalition of Cameron's Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, which came to power in June 2010 just after the budget deficit peaked at 11.2 percent of GDP.

Last year, it was down to 8 percent of GDP but the government's own budget watchdog forecasts it will take until 2017 before it falls below 3 percent and the government manages to run a surplus on cyclically adjusted non-investment spending.

Finance minister George Osborne had originally planned to meet this goal by the next election in 2015, but slow growth over the last two years now makes that look impossible.

Cameron said his administration was "a government in a hurry" which would not give in to pressure to slow the pace of deficit reduction or rein in reforms to welfare and education.

"We can look to the future with realism and optimism. Realism, because you can't cure problems that were decades in the making overnight. There are no quick fixes and I wouldn't claim otherwise.

"But we can be optimistic too because we are making tangible progress.

Cameron said Britain was heading in the right direction. The budget deficit was forecast to be a quarter smaller at the New Year than it was in 2010 and that almost half a million more people were in work since then.

"Britain is in a global race to succeed today. It is a race with countries like China, India and Indonesia: a race for the jobs and opportunities of the future.

"So when people say we can slow down on cutting our debts, we are saying 'no.' We can't win in this world with a great millstone of debt round our necks.

He made no mention of Britain's place in the European Union, an issue which many analysts believe will be high on the political agenda in 2013 and on which he is due to make a long-delayed keynote speech in the New Year.

Trailing in opinion polls and under pressure from an anti-EU group within his Conservative party, Cameron wants to take advantage of the euro zone crisis to renegotiate Britain's relationship with Brussels and win more opt-outs from its rules.

But his pro-EU Liberal Democrat partners, including Deputy prime Minister Nick Clegg, say talk of a referendum is premature until the euro crisis is resolved.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Body of India rape victim arrives home in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India arrived back in New Delhi in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The unidentified 23-year-old medical student died from her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

She had suffered brain injuries and massive internal damage in the attack on December 16, and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body back to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's convoy was at the airport when the plane landed and left soon afterwards, the witness said.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off-guard. It took a week for Singh to make a statement, infuriating many protesters.

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse in India.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, although it is too early to say whether the protesters calling for government action to better safeguard women can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

PROTESTS

Protesters have staged peaceful demonstrations in the capital New Delhi and in cities across India in the last few days to keep the pressure on Singh's government to get tougher on crimes against women. Last weekend protesters fought pitched battles with police.

Authorities, worried about the reaction to the news of her death on Saturday, deployed thousands of policemen, closed 10 metro stations and banned vehicles from some main roads in central New Delhi.

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in India rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

For a link to the poll, click http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/special-coverage/g20women/

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Louise Ireland; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Syria opposition leader rejects Moscow invitation

ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war.

Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition group has been recognized by most Western and Arab states as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.

But in an interview on Al Jazeera television, Alkhatib said he had already ruled out such a trip and wanted an apology from Moscow for its support for Assad.

"We have clearly said we will not go to Moscow. We could meet in an Arab country if there was a clear agenda," he said.

"Now we also want an apology from (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov because all this time he said that the people will decide their destiny, without foreign intervention. Russia is intervening and meanwhile all these massacres of the Syrian people have happened, treated as if they were a picnic."

"If we don't represent the Syrian people, why do they invite us?" Alkhatib said. "And if we do represent the Syrian people why doesn't Russia respond and issue a clear condemnation of the barbarity of the regime and make a clear call for Assad to step down? This is the basic condition for any negotiations."

With the rebels advancing steadily over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Moscow's willingness to protect Assad is faltering.

So far Russia has stuck to its position that rebels must negotiate with Assad's government, which has ruled since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," Lavrov said on Friday.

That was immediately dismissed by the opposition: "The coalition is ready for political talks with anyone ... but it will not negotiate with the Assad regime," spokesman Walid al-Bunni told Reuters. "Everything can happen after the Assad regime and all its foundations have gone. After that we can sit down with all Syrians to set out the future."

BRAHIMI TO MOSCOW

Russia says it is behind the efforts of U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad. Brahimi, due in Moscow for talks on Saturday, is touting a months-old peace plan for a transitional government.

That U.N. plan was long seen as a dead letter, foundering from the outset over the question of whether the transitional body would include Assad or his allies. Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, quit in frustration shortly after negotiating it.

But with rebels having seized control of large sections of the country in recent months, Russia and the United States have been working with Brahimi to resurrect the plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.

Russia's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who announced the invitation to Alkhatib, said further talks were scheduled between the "three B's" - himself, Brahimi and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.

Speaking in Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government with "all the powers of the state", a phrase interpreted by the opposition as potentially signaling tolerance of Assad remaining in some ceremonial role.

But such a plan is anathema to the surging rebels, who now believe they can drive Assad out with a military victory, despite long being outgunned by his forces.

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told reporters at his headquarters there.

Oqaidi said the rebels want Assad and his allies tried in Syria for crimes. Assad himself says he will stay on and fight to the death if necessary.

In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up cartoons showing Brahimi speaking to a news conference with toilet bowls in front of him, in place of microphones. Banners denounced the U.N. envoy with obscenities in English.

DIPLOMATS IMPOTENT

Diplomacy has largely been irrelevant to the conflict so far, with Western states ruling out military intervention like the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Muammar Gaddafi last year, and Russia and China blocking U.N. action against Assad.

Meanwhile, the fighting has grown fiercer and more sectarian, with rebels mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority battling Assad's government and allied militia dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Still, Western diplomats have repeatedly touted signs of a change in policy from Russia, which they hope could prove decisive, much as Moscow's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.

Bogdanov said earlier this month that Assad's forces were losing ground and rebels might win the war, but Russia has since rowed back, with Lavrov last week reiterating Moscow's position that neither side could win through force.

Still, some Moscow-based analysts see the Kremlin coming to accept it must adapt to the possibility of rebel victory.

"As the situation changes on the battlefield, more incentives emerge for seeking a way to stop the military action and move to a phase of political regulation," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Meanwhile, on the ground the bloodshed that has killed some 44,000 people continues unabated. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, 150 people were killed on Thursday, a typical toll as fighting has escalated in recent months.

Government war planes bombarded the town of Assal al-Ward in the Qalamoun district of Damascus province for the first time, killing one person and wounding dozens, the observatory said.

In Aleppo, Syria's northern commercial hub, clashes took place between rebel fighters and army forces around an air force intelligence building in the Zahra quarter, a neighborhood that has been surrounded by rebels for weeks.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Dominic Evans in Beirut and Steve Gutterman and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Egypt opposition says Islamists trying to stifle dissent

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's opposition accused President Mohamed Mursi's Islamist allies of trying to muzzle dissent on Friday after prosecutors decided to investigate whether prominent government critics were guilty of sedition.

The probe, which comes a month after Mursi replaced the chief prosecutor, further sours the political climate as the leader and his opponents face off over a new constitution that became law on Wednesday.

Critics of the new charter say it uses vague language, fails to enshrine the rights of women and minorities and does little to champion the rights of Egyptians who rose up last year to overthrow army-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Supporters say it protects personal rights that were often trampled upon during the Mubarak era and a subsequent spell of army rule.

The constitution text won about 64 percent approval in a two-stage referendum but Mursi's opponents vowed to continue protests and rejected his calls for a national dialogue.

Prosecutors ordered the inquiry into three of the president's most prominent opponents on Thursday - former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and leftist Hamdeen Sabahy.

Moussa and Sabahy both challenged Mursi for the presidency in a June election which followed the 2011 uprising.

The prosecutor's office said the three had been accused of inciting supporters to rise up and overthrow Mursi, the country's first fairly elected leader.

Mursi's critics saw an attempt to intimidate them into silence and vowed to continue challenging his rule.

"I believe this is orchestrated by the Brotherhood leadership," Hussein Abdel Ghani, a spokesman for the country's main opposition umbrella group, told Reuters. "The Mubarak regime used to order the same tactics."

"But we are going to use our full rights, our civil tactics, to demonstrate our opposition to this regime," he said.

The charged atmosphere makes it harder for Mursi to bolster his authority and muster a consensus for unpopular austerity measures vital to preventing a weak economy from collapsing.

AN END TO TURMOIL

Mursi is hoping that the quick adoption of the constitution and holding elections to a permanent new parliament soon will help end the long period of turmoil since Mubarak's overthrow in February 2011 that has wrecked the economy.

But the Egyptian pound tumbled to its weakest in almost eight years this week after the constitution was approved. People unnerved by the continued political tension rushed to hoard dollars and gold.

The government ordered new restrictions on foreign currency apparently designed to prevent capital flight. Leaving or entering with more than $10,000 cash is now banned.

Mursi was propelled into office thanks to the rallying power of his Muslim Brotherhood, the country's main opposition group under Mubarak that was banned from formal politics for decades.

Ahmed Sobeih, a spokesman for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, dismissed Abdel Ghani's accusation of an organized legal campaign against Mursi's opponents.

"We must get away from the language of mutual accusations," he said, adding that "dozens" of similar complaints had been filed against Brotherhood leaders.

Mursi appointed Chief Public Prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim when he assumed sweeping new powers on November 22. Ibrahim's predecessor, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, had served for many years under Mubarak.

Judicial sources said the inquiry against Moussa, ElBaradei and Sabahy followed a complaint from lawyers sympathetic to Mursi.

The trio are part of the National Salvation Front, an alliance of political groups that has spearheaded street protests against the government.

"The mere referral of these complaints to an investigative judge and the accompanying public announcement is already cause enough for serious concern," said Heba Morayef, Egypt director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

A spokesman for Moussa said the accusations against him were groundless.

"What we read in the papers are several allegations that we have denied over and over in the past few months," said Ahmed Kamel, a spokesman for Moussa's Congress Party. "They are completely unfounded and have no relation to reality."

(Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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Alleged militants detained in Djibouti charged by U.S. court

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sign of evolving U.S. legal tactics in counter-terrorism operations, two Swedish citizens and a former British citizen detained in Africa in August have been charged in a U.S. court with supporting Somali-based Islamist militants.

The charges were filed in Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York, even though court papers and a press release from the U.S. Attorney's office make no specific allegation that the three - all of whom are of Somali extraction - posed threats to Americans or U.S.-related targets.

The three suspects - two Swedish citizens and a former London resident whose British citizenship recently was revoked - were charged with supporting the militant group al-Shabaab, illegal use of high-powered firearms, and participating in what prosecutors called "an elite al-Shabaab suicide-bomber program."

Ephraim Savitt, a former federal prosecutor who represents one of the Swedish defendants, said he was unaware of any secret evidence that the men threatened U.S. interests, and he saw "no prosecutorial hook whatever to the United States."

Savitt said he was unaware of any previous case in which U.S. authorities had taken custody of foreign militants who had no obvious connection, and posed no known threat, to U.S. interests.

However, a U.S. law enforcement source said there had been cases in the past where suspected foreign militants arrested overseas who had not directly threatened the United States had been brought before U.S. courts on terrorism-related charges.

The latest suspects - Swedes Ali Yasin Ahmed and Mohamed Yusuf, and former British resident Madhi Hashi - were detained by local authorities in Africa in early August while on their way to Yemen, the statement from prosecutors said.

The suspects were subsequently indicted in October by a Brooklyn-based federal grand jury, and in mid-November the FBI "took custody" of them and brought them to Brooklyn, where a revised indictment was filed against them, prosecutors said.

No information about the case was made public until just before Christmas, however.

U.S. officials said they were unable to provide further details about where the suspects were originally arrested, who arrested them, what was the legal basis for their initial arrest, and what happened to them between early August and their first known public court appearance in late December.

ARRESTED IN DJIBOUTI

However, Savitt, who represents Yusuf, said the men were arrested in Djibouti on their way to Yemen.

He said that at one point the men had been "fighters" with al-Shabaab, a group the United States has linked to al Qaeda. But at the time of their arrest, Savitt said, the men were trying to get away from the group after an apparent falling out.

Savitt said he did not know why they were heading to Yemen.

Saghir Hussain, a British lawyer who represents the family of Hashi, told the BBC this month the case had the "hallmarks of rendition," a reference to a secret procedure adopted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

Such renditions involved teams of agency operatives taking custody of suspected militants overseas and handing them over, without legal process, to third countries, where they were sometimes mistreated.

Neither Hussain nor Harry Batchelder, Hashi's American lawyer, responded to messages requesting comment. Susan Kellman, a U.S. lawyer for Ahmed, also could not be reached.

Savitt said Hashi and the other suspects were detained and held in Djibouti by local authorities, who sometimes treated them roughly, but U.S. officials who at one point were allowed to interrogate them were "civil."

U.S. government sources familiar with the case said it could not be considered a "rendition," as in such cases suspects were not brought into the U.S. criminal justice system.

President Barack Obama's administration has declared it has stopped counter-terrorism practices such as "enhanced interrogations" and the use of secret CIA prisons, but it has not completely renounced the use of "rendition."

Hashi's family told the BBC that earlier last summer they received a letter from Britain's internal security department, the Home Office, declaring that his British citizenship had been revoked as he was deemed a threat to the U.K. security.

Under British law, Hashi had a right to appeal the revocation of his citizenship to an immigration court. A spokesperson for the British Embassy in Washington said that, for legal reasons, the government could not comment on whether or not such an appeal had been filed.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

(This story was corrected to show that the suspects detained in August and clarifies that men of Somali extraction in the first paragraph)

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Analysis: U.N. confronts failure of diplomacy in Syria

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Attempts by the United Nations to end the bloody 21-month-old Syrian conflict through diplomacy have been a resounding failure and there is little reason to expect a quick change given the Russian-U.S. rift on Syria.

After a year of intensive diplomatic efforts by the world body, U.N.-Arab League peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria has made no more progress than his predecessor, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in getting the government and rebels to come to the negotiating table, or getting Russia and the United States to overcome their deep disagreements on Syria.

Brahimi heads to Moscow on Saturday to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the United Nations said, but expectations are low. Syria's opposition leader rejected an invitation from Russia to attend peace talks, which was a blow to Brahimi's efforts.

At the heart of the diplomatic roadblock is a seemingly unbreakable impasse on the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and the United States, both veto-wielding permanent members of the 15-nation group, are seeing their bilateral ties deteriorate.

There is no reason to expect anything different in early 2013. After three joint Russian-Chinese vetoes on Syria, the Security Council has all but given up on the issue.

"It's very depressing to be a party to failed diplomacy," a senior U.N. official told Reuters. "There's no end to the (Security Council) deadlock and as long as that deadlock remains, it's hard to make a difference beyond humanitarian aid, and that's not easy."

In addition to generally rocky relations between Washington and Moscow, Russia has strategic reasons for standing by Assad. He has been a staunch ally, a major purchaser of Russian arms and host to Russia's only warm-water naval port. But even Russia realizes Assad will likely be ousted sooner or later.

NO CEASEFIRE

Annan, the first U.N.-Arab League peace negotiator to try to end the escalating civil war, focused on getting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and the opposition to agree to a ceasefire.

With neither side willing to lay down its weapons, a frustrated Annan announced his resignation in August, saying the divided Security Council had undermined his efforts. He urged Russia, China and Iran to do more to push for an end to the bloodshed.

Brahimi is concentrating on healing the rift between Russia and the United States as the conflict in Syria becomes increasingly gruesome and sectarian, U.N. officials and diplomats say.

Disagreements between the United States and Russia or China on the 15-nation Security Council are nothing new. They have had sharp differences on crises in Georgia, North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and elsewhere that have prevented the council from taking any meaningful action.

But the deadlock on Syria is especially frustrating for U.N. officials and diplomats, who complain the United Nations has been confined to the sidelines as the corpses pile higher.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly urged countries to unite in support of Brahimi's efforts but that has not happened.

"We do not see any prospect of any end of violence or any prospect of political dialogue to start," Ban told reporters last week.

Brahimi is convinced that ending the U.S.-Russian rift is the key to unraveling the Gordian knot that has prevented a negotiated end to a war in which 44,000 people have died.

The crux of their disagreement is whether Assad should go now, as the rebels, Washington and the Europeans want, or later, as Moscow would prefer, after a period with a transitional leadership that could include members of Assad's government.

Russia has repeatedly said it is not wedded to Assad, although it has refused to abandon him.

"For (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, it's all about not compromising with America at the moment," a senior Western diplomat said.

WASHINGTON-MOSCOW TIES

The latest example of worsening U.S.-Russian ties is Moscow's new ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children, a move that came in retaliation against U.S. human rights legislation aimed at Russia.

Diplomats and analysts say it is not Brahimi's fault that he has failed. The veteran Algerian diplomat played down hopes that he could succeed from the outset.

Richard Gowan of New York University said Brahimi's modest approach has restored some of the U.N. credibility that was lost while Annan was the Syria mediator.

"But (Brahimi's) current peace plan is at least half a year out of date," Gowan said. "The rebels simply will not buy it."

Brahimi is pushing for a transitional government and has suggested he wants to build on an international agreement signed in Geneva six months ago that envisioned a provisional body - which might include members of Assad's government as well as the opposition - leading the country to a new election.

His recycled peace plan has not made him popular with the rebels, who also have complained that the United States and Europeans have failed to provide them weapons, despite the West's clear desire to see Assad ousted. Diplomats say arms are reaching the rebels from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have seized the military initiative since June's Geneva meeting and the political opposition has ruled out any transitional government in which Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority, has a role.

Radwan Ziadeh of the opposition Syrian National Council dismissed Brahimi's proposal as "unrealistic and fanciful" and said a transitional government could not be built on the same "security and intelligence structure as the existing regime."

Some diplomats say Russia's influence on Syria is wildly exaggerated and that Assad is not going to compromise because he is fighting for his own and the Alawites' survival.

So where does that leave Russia?

"It's understood that Bashar al-Assad's regime will not last long," said Georgy Mirsky, a Middle East expert at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations in Moscow.

"But this does not mean that Russia is ready to join the West, the Turks and the Arabs and demand that Assad go? That would be senseless. Syria is lost (to Russia) anyway," he said.

At least Russia "will be able to say that we do not abandon our friends," Mirsky said.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Editing by Bill Trott)

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India gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Indian gang rape victim whose assault in New Delhi triggered nationwide protests died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, potentially threatening fresh protests in India where her case is a rallying point for women's rights.

The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for specialist treatment.

"We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (3:45 p.m. ET Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her side," Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.

Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women's rights activists say. But the brutality of the December 16 assault sparked public outrage and calls for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. The woman has not been identified but some Indian media have called her "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure".

"We are saddened to learn that she has succumbed to her injuries, and would like to extend our deepest condolences to her family during this time of bereavement," Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Earlier on Friday, the hospital had reported that the woman's condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said that her family had been informed and were by her side.

T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, said after her death that the family had expressed a desire for her body to be flown back to India. Moments later, the woman's body was loaded into a van and driven away.

Talking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Raghavan declined to comment on reports in India accusing the government of sending her to Singapore to minimize the possible backlash in the event of her death.

Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry and heavy handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.

"It is deeply saddening and just beyond words. The police and government definitely have to do something more," said Sharanya Ramachandran, an Indian national working as an engineer in Singapore.

"They should bring in very severe punishment for such cases. They should start recognizing that it is a big crime."

"SIGNIFICANT BRAIN INJURY"

The Singapore hospital said earlier that the woman had suffered "significant brain injury" and was surviving against the odds. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before being flown to Singapore.

Protests over the lack of safety for women erupted across India after the attack, culminating last weekend in pitched battles between police and protesters in the heart of New Delhi.

New Delhi has been on edge since the weekend clashes. Hundreds of policemen have been deployed on the streets of the capital and streets leading to the main protest site, the India Gate war memorial, have been shut for long periods, severely disrupting traffic in the city of 16 million.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape has tapped into a deep well of frustration that many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues.

Many protesters have complained that Singh's government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin in New Delhi and Saeed Azhar and Edgar Su in Singapore; Editing by Michael Roddy and Mark Bendeich)

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Syria envoy calls for political change to end conflict

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The international envoy seeking a negotiated solution to Syria's 21-month-old conflict said on Thursday political change was needed to end the violence which has killed 44,000 people.

Speaking in Damascus at the end of a five-day trip during which he met President Bashar al-Assad, Lakhdar Brahimi called for a transitional government to rule until elections and said only substantial change would meet demands of ordinary Syrians.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added to the envoy's call for a peaceful solution when he told a senior Syrian diplomat that only a "broad inter-Syria dialogue and political process" could end the crisis.

Brahimi's push for a transitional government suggested he was trying to build on an international agreement in Geneva six months ago which said a provisional body - which might include members of Assad's government as well as the opposition - should lead the country into a new election.

But the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have seized the military initiative since the Geneva meeting in June and the political opposition has ruled out any transitional government in which Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority, plays a role.

Rebel fighters resumed attacks on Thursday against the military base of Wadi Deif, which lies next to Syria's main north-south highway linking Aleppo with Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition group which monitors the violence, said rebels also clashed with Assad's forces inside the Minakh air base in Aleppo province after several days of fighting outside its perimeter, although the army still controlled the base itself.

Around the capital, Assad has used artillery and air strikes for weeks to try to dislodge rebels from suburbs which ring the east and south of the city.

"Certainly it was clear in Geneva, and it's even clearer now that the change which is needed is not cosmetic or superficial," Brahimi told a news conference in Damascus before leaving Syria.

"I believe the Syrian people need, want and aspire to genuine change and everyone knows what this means," he said.

"A government must be created ... with all the powers of the state," Brahimi added. He said it should hold power for a transitional period until elections - either for a new president or a new parliament - are held.

"This transitional process must not lead to the ... collapse of state institutions. All Syrians, and those who support them, must cooperate to preserve those institutions and strengthen them," he said.

Radwan Ziadeh of the opposition Syrian National Council dismissed Brahimi's proposal as "unrealistic and fanciful" and said a transitional government could not be built on the same "security and intelligence structure as the existing regime".

TOO SOON FOR COMPLETE PLAN

Russia's Lavrov met Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad in Moscow on Thursday. Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying the chances of forging a solution based on the Geneva agreement were decreasing, but it was necessary to keep seeking a peaceful solution because the alternative is "bloody chaos".

"The longer it continues, the broader its scale and the worse (it will be) for everyone," it quoted Lavrov as saying.

Syrian and Lebanese sources said Makdad had been sent to Moscow to discuss details of a peace plan proposed by Brahimi.

Brahimi is due in Moscow on Saturday and said he also expected to have a third joint meeting with U.S. and Russian officials soon following two rounds of talks earlier this month. But he denied the existence of a U.S.-Russian plan to end the crisis and said it was too soon to present a "complete plan".

"What is preferred is that we don't present such a plan until we feel that all sides have agreed to it. That way, implementing it is easy. If that doesn't happen, the other solution could be to go to the (United Nations) Security Council to issue a binding resolution for everyone," he said.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also denied any joint initiative between Moscow and Washington.

World powers remain divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle, with Sunni Muslim states such as Turkey and the Gulf Arab countries supporting the rebels while Shi'ite Iran and Hezbollah have backed Assad, whose Alawite community has its roots in Shi'ite Islam.

Syria's struggle "has taken a vicious form of sectarian confrontation", Brahimi said. "Syrian officials foremost, as well as the international community, must not let Syria slide down this very dangerous path which threatens the future of Syria."

Deep differences between Western powers opposed to Assad - led by the United States - and Russia and China which have supported his government, have left the U.N. Security Council paralyzed and largely sidelined throughout the conflict.

The political stalemate has helped transform a once-peaceful uprising into a civil war in which rebels have grown in military strength and taken control of swathes of territory in the north, leaving Assad increasingly reliant on air power to curb them.

Activists in the central province of Hama, where rebels launched an offensive last week to extend their control southwards towards the capital, reported on Thursday that rebels shot down a MiG fighter near the town of Morek.

The Syrian Observatory said air force fighters launched three raids on rebel forces around Wadi Deif. The British-based group also reported fierce clashes in the area.

The violence has been accompanied by an escalation in apparently sectarian attacks between the Sunni Muslim majority and minorities such as Assad's Alawite sect, which has largely supported the president.

Activists in Hama uploaded a video of what appeared to be Assad soldiers and shabbiha militia members stabbing the body of a dead man and setting it on fire. The man looked as if he had been beaten to death.

"This is a terrorist, a brother of a whore, one of those trying to destroy the country," one of the men shouted. Two men in camouflage uniforms and army helmets stood by watching. Samer al-Hamawi, an activist from Hama, said rebels in his area found the video on the phone of a soldier they captured this week.

The video emerged a day after Islamist rebel units released footage showing the bodies of dozens of Assad's fighters along a highway near an Alawite town in Hama.

(Additional reporting by Marwan Makdesi in Damascus and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Russia's Putin signals he will sign U.S. adoption ban

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signaled on Thursday he would sign into law a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children and sought to forestall criticism of the move by promising measures to better care for his country's orphans.

In televised comments, Putin tried to appeal to people's patriotism by suggesting that strong and responsible countries should take care of their own and lent his support to a bill that has further strained U.S.-Russia relations.

"There are probably many places in the world where living standards are higher than ours. So what, are we going to send all our children there? Maybe we should move there ourselves?" he said, with sarcasm.

Parliament gave its final approval on Wednesday to the bill, which would also introduce other measures in retaliation for new U.S. legislation which is designed to punish Russians accused of human rights violations.

For it to become law Putin needs to sign it.

"So far I see no reason not to sign it, although I have to review the final text and weigh everything," Putin said at a meeting of federal and regional officials that was shown live on the state's 24-hour news channel.

"I intend to sign not only the law ... but also a presidential decree that will modify the support mechanisms for orphaned children ... especially those who are in a difficult situation, by that I mean in poor health," Putin said.

Critics of the bill say the Russian authorities are playing political games with the lives of children, while the U.S. State Department repeated its "deep concern" over the measure.

"Since 1992 American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, and it is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement.

Ventrell added that the United States was troubled by provisions in the bill that would restrict the ability of Russian civil society organizations to work with U.S. partners.

Children in Russia's crowded and troubled orphanage system - particularly those with serious illnesses or disabilities - will have less of a chance of finding homes, and of even surviving, if it becomes law, child rights advocates say.

They point to people like Jessica Long, who was given up shortly after birth by her parents in Siberia but was raised by adoptive parents in the United States and became a Paralympic swimming champion.

However, the Russian authorities point to the deaths of 19 Russian-born children adopted by American parents in the past decade, and lawmakers named the bill after a boy who died of heat stroke in Virginia after his adoptive father left him locked in a car for hours.

Putin reiterated Russian complaints that U.S. courts have been too lenient on parents in such cases, saying Russia has inadequate access to Russian-born children in the United States despite a bilateral agreement that entered into force on November 1.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

But Putin, who began a new six-year term in May and has searched for ways to unite the country during 13 years in power, suggested there were deeper motives for such a ban.

"For centuries, neither spiritual nor state leaders sent anyone abroad," he said, indicating he was not speaking specifically about Russia but about many societies.

"They always fight for their national identities - they gather themselves together in a fist, they fight for their language, culture," he said.

The bid to ban American adoptions plays on sensitivity in Russia about adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed as the social safety net unraveled with the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Families from the United States adopt more Russian children than those of any other country.

Putin had earlier described the Russian bill as an emotional but appropriate response to the Magnitsky Act, legislation signed by President Barack Obama this month as part of a law granting Russia "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) status.

The U.S. law imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in a Moscow jail of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-graft lawyer, in 2009.

The Russian bill would impose similar measures against Americans accused of violating the rights of Russian abroad and outlaw some U.S.-funded non-governmental groups.

(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Doina Chiacu)

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Egypt's Mubarak moved to army hospital on health concerns

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian strongman ousted last year after 30 years in power, was moved to an army hospital from a prison hospital on Thursday following a fall that raised fresh concerns about his fragile health.

Mubarak, 84, was forced out in a 2011 uprising and sentenced to life in prison in June of this year for his role in killing protesters during the revolt. He was admitted to a prison hospital that month following what security officials called a "health crisis".

Mubarak's health has been the subject of intense speculation in Egypt and he has spent much of the time before and after his trial in the prison hospital.

His lawyer said he was transferred to the military hospital after fracturing a rib in the fall in his prison clinic. He said he also suffered from lung complications and dizziness.

"The health condition is deteriorating to some extent due to the president's fall the week before last," lawyer Mohamed Abdel Razek told Reuters.

Mubarak is to be treated at the military hospital in Cairo's Maadi suburb. "He will stay for awhile," a security source told Reuters.

Mubarak's legal team had been pressing to have him moved from the prison hospital to a better-equipped facility, saying he was not receiving adequate treatment.

There has been no clarity, however, on the exact nature of any of his ailments, with state media reporting a variety of illnesses ranging from shortage of breath to heart attacks and comas.

On July 16 Mubarak was sent back to prison on the orders of the former public prosecutor who said his health had improved and he no longer needed the advanced care of the military hospital where he had been moved in June.

At the time, senior officers and military sources gave various accounts of Mubarak's condition, including that he was in a coma and on life support.

The fate of his family, accused by Egypt's new rulers of accumulating vast wealth illegally during Mubarak's long reign, is also the subject of much speculation.

Public prosecutor Talaat Abdallah has agreed to a request from Egypt's illicit gains authority investigating corruption to confiscate funds from two bank accounts belonging to Mubarak's wife Suzanne and move them to the central bank, the MENA news agency said.

The state newspaper al-Ahram said the amount to be confiscated was 27 million Egyptian pounds ($4.4 million). In May 2011 Suzanne Mubarak was released from detention on graft accusations and relinquished some of her assets to the state.

Mubarak's two sons are also being held in prison, facing trial on graft charges, which they deny.

(Reporting by Shaimaa Fayed, Marwa Awad and Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Shaimaa Fayed; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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U.S. suspends embassy operations in rebel-hit Central African Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it was suspending operations at its embassy in the Central African Republic as rebels appeared poised to move on the capital of the impoverished but resource-rich nation.

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. embassy had temporarily suspended operations and that the U.S. ambassador and other embassy personnel had left the country.

"This decision is solely due to concerns about the security of our personnel and has no relation to our continuing and long-standing diplomatic relations with the CAR," Ventrell said in a statement.

(Reporting By Andrew Quinn; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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CAR appeals for French help against rebels, Paris balks

BANGUI (Reuters) - The president of the Central African Republic appealed on Thursday for France and the United States to help push back rebels threatening his government and the capital, but Paris said its troops were only ready to protect French nationals.

The exchanges came as regional African leaders tried to broker a ceasefire deal and as rebels said they had temporarily halted their advance on Bangui, the capital, to allow talks to take place.

Insurgents on motorbikes and in pickup trucks have driven to within 75 km (47 miles) of Bangui after weeks of fighting, threatening to end President Francois Bozize's nearly 10-year-stint in charge of the turbulent, resource-rich country.

French nuclear energy group Areva mines the Bakouma uranium deposit in the CAR's south - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.

The rebel advance has highlighted the instability of a country that has remained poor since independence from Paris in 1960 despite rich deposits of uranium, gold and diamonds. Average income is barely over $2 a day.

Bozize on Thursday appealed for French and U.S. military support to stop the SELEKA rebel coalition, which has promised to overthrow him unless he implements a previous peace deal in full.

He told a crowd of anti-rebel protesters in the riverside capital that he had asked Paris and Washington to help move the rebels away from the capital to clear the way for peace talks which regional leaders say could be held soon in Libreville, Gabon.

"We are asking our cousins the French and the United States, which are major powers, to help us push back the rebels to their initial positions in a way that will permit talks in Libreville to resolve this crisis," Bozize said.

France has 250 soldiers in its landlocked former colony as part of a peacekeeping mission and Paris in the past has ousted or propped up governments - including by using air strikes to defend Bozize against rebels in 2006.

But French President Francois Hollande poured cold water on the latest request for help.

"If we have a presence, it's not to protect a regime, it's to protect our nationals and our interests and in no way to intervene in the internal business of a country, in this case the Central African Republic," Hollande said on the sidelines of a visit to a wholesale food market outside Paris.

"Those days are over," he said.

Some 1,200 French nationals live in the CAR, mostly in the capital, according to the French Foreign Ministry, where they typically work for mining firms or aid groups.

CEASEFIRE TALKS

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement saying its members "condemn the continued attacks on several towns perpetrated by the 'SELEKA' coalition of armed groups which gravely undermine the Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement and threaten the civilian population."

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. embassy had temporarily suspended operations and the U.S. ambassador and other embassy personnel had left the country.

Officials from around central Africa are due to meet in Bangui later on Thursday to open initial talks with the government and rebels.

A rebel spokesman said fighters had temporarily halted their advance to allow dialogue.

"We will not enter Bangui," Colonel Djouma Narkoyo, the rebel spokesman, told Reuters by telephone.

Previous rebel promises to stop advancing have been broken, and a diplomatic source said rebels had taken up positions around Bangui on Thursday, effectively surrounding it.

The atmosphere remained tense in the city the day after anti-rebel protests broke out, and residents were stocking up on food and water.

Government soldiers deployed at strategic sites and French troops reinforced security at the French embassy after protesters threw rocks at the building on Wednesday.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said protecting foreigners and embassies was the responsibility of the CAR authorities.

"This message will once again be stressed to the CAR's charge d'affaires in Paris, who has been summoned this afternoon," a ministry spokesman said.

He also said France condemned the rebels for pursuing hostilities and urged all sides to commit to talks.

Bozize came to power in a 2003 rebellion that overthrew President Ange-Felix Patasse.

However, France is increasingly reluctant to directly intervene in conflicts in its former colonies. Since coming to power in May, Hollande has promised to end its shadowy relations with former colonies and put ties on a healthier footing.

A military source and an aid worker said the rebels had got as far as Damara, 75 km (47 miles) from Bangui, by late afternoon on Wednesday, having skirted Sibut, where some 150 Chadian soldiers had earlier been deployed to try and block a push south by a rebel coalition.

With a government that holds little sway outside the capital, some parts of the country have long endured the consequences of conflicts in troubled neighbors Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo spilling over.

The Central African Republic is one of a number of nations in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local forces try to track down the Lords Resistance Army, a rebel group responsible for killing thousands of civilians across four African nations.

(Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas and Louis Charbonneau; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Paul Simao)

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Mental illness, poverty haunted Afghan policewoman who killed American

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan policewoman suspected of killing a U.S. contractor at police headquarters in Kabul suffered from mental illness and was driven to suicidal despair by poverty, her children told Reuters on Wednesday.

The woman was identified by authorities as Narges Rezaeimomenabad, a 40-year-old grandmother and mother of three who moved here from Iran 10 years ago and married an Afghan man.

On Monday morning, she loaded a pistol in a bathroom at the police compound, hid it in her long scarf and shot an American police trainer, apparently becoming the first Afghan woman to carry out such an attack.

Narges also tried to shoot police officials after killing the American. Luckily for them, her pistol jammed. Her husband is also under investigation.

Her son Sayed, 16, and daughter Fatima, 13, described how they tried to call their parents 100 times after news broke of the shooting, then waited in vain for them to come home.

They recalled Narges's severe mood swings, and how at times she beat them and even pulled out a knife. But the children said she was consistent in bemoaning poverty.

"She was usually complaining about poverty. She was complaining to my father about our conditions. She was saying that my father was poor," Sayid said in an interview in their damp, cold two-room cement house.

On the floor beside him were his mother's prescriptions and a thick plastic bag filled with pills she tried to swallow to end the misery about a month ago. On another occasion, she cut her wrist with a razor, Sayed said.

"My father was usually calm and sometimes would say that she was guilty too because it wasn't a forced marriage. They fell in love and got married."

There was no sign in their neighborhood of the billions of dollars of Western aid that have poured into Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, or of government investment.

RAW SEWAGE, STAGNANT WATER, DIRT ROADS

The lane outside their home stank of raw sewage.

Dirty, stagnant water filled holes in dirt roads nearby, where children in tattered clothes played and butchers stood by cow's hooves in shops choked by dust.

Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest nations, with a third of its 30 million residents living under the poverty line.

The sole distractions from the daily grind appeared to be a deck of playing cards and a compact disc with songs from Iranian pop singers, scattered on the floor of a room where Narges would lock herself in and weep, or sit in silence.

At times, Narges would try to focus on building her children's confidence, telling them to be guided by the Muslim holy book, the Koran, to tackle life's problems.

Sayed and Fatima said she never spoke badly of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Neighbor Mohammad Ismail Kohistani was dumbfounded to hear on the radio that Afghan officials were combing Narges' phone records to try to determine whether al Qaeda or the Taliban could have brainwashed her into carrying out a mission.

But he was acutely aware of her mental problems and often heard her scream at her husband, whose low-level job in the crime investigation unit of the police brought home little cash.

Kohistani, who operates a small sewing shop with battered machines, never imagined his neighbor could be accused of a high-profile attack that raised new questions about the direction of an unpopular war.

"I became very depressed and sad," said Kohistani, sitting on the floor few feet from a tiny wood-burning stove in Narges's home, alongside family photographs and a police training manual.

Fatima would often seek refuge in Kohistani's house when her mother's behavior became unbearable. "She did not hate us, but usually she was angry and would not talk to us," said Fatima, her eyes moist with tears.

Nevertheless, she missed her mother. The children were staying with a cousin.

"I ask the government to free my mother, otherwise our future will be destroyed," said Fatima.

Officials described it as another "insider shooting", in which Afghan forces turn on Westerners they are meant to be working with to stabilize the country. There have been over 52 such attacks so far this year.

The shooting at the police headquarters may have alarmed Afghanistan's Western allies. But some Afghans have grown numb to the violence.

Kohistani's 70-year-old father Omara Khan, who sports a white beard, sat twirling prayer beads beneath a photograph of Narges in a black veil beside one of her husband.

Asked what he thought of the attack, he laughed.

"This is common in Afghanistan," said Khan, who lived through decades of upheaval, including the 10-year Soviet occupation and a civil war that destroyed half of Kabul and killed some 50,000 civilians.

"People are killed every day."

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

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