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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms shipments in violation of a U.N. Security Council ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic, according to a confidential report on Iran sanctions-busting seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Iran, like Russia, is one of Syria's few allies as it presses ahead with a 14-month old assault on opposition forces determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. News of the panel's report came as Tehran and the U.N. ...

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - A prominent Honduran radio journalist was killed by drug gangs in retaliation for a government crackdown on cartels, the country's security minister said on Wednesday. Alfredo Villatoro, a well-known media personality, was found shot in the head on Tuesday a week after being kidnapped, the latest attack on the media in the violent Central American nation. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece put a senior judge in charge of an emergency government on Wednesday to lead the nation to new elections on June 17 and bankers tried to calm public fears after the president said political chaos risked causing panic and a run on deposits. In a blow to confidence, the European Central Bank said it had halted liquidity operations with some Greek banks because their capital was too depleted. That means they can no longer offer assets to the ECB as collateral for loans, and would have to seek costlier emergency financing from the Bank of Greece. ...

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande named a government dominated by moderate left-wingers on Wednesday after Socialist Party boss Martine Aubry, overlooked for the post of prime minister, said she no longer wanted to be part of the new cabinet. Hollande, sworn in on Tuesday as France's first Socialist president in 17 years, named Pierre Moscovici as finance minister and Laurent Fabius as foreign minister, key posts under Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, like them a social democrat. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where the United States has already trimmed its forces ahead of the coming NATO withdrawal, a modest number of al Qaeda fighters have re-established operations, U.S. officials say, a worrying sign of the risks that could jeopardize Western hopes of a smooth exit. Current and former U.S. officials say the fighters, believed to be mostly Arabs and Pakistanis who number less than 100, have crept back across the porous border with Pakistan to Kunar and Nuristan provinces. ...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian riot police detained at least 35 demonstrators on Wednesday, breaking up one Occupy-style sit-in at a Moscow park and threatening to disperse another in a crackdown on a protest movement against newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin. Police raided the site of the week-old sit-in at a central Moscow park, citing a court order to end the protest. They ordered the 50 or so demonstrators to pick up their belongings, detained at least 15 and pushed the others into a nearby underground train station. ...

WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will seek support to tap emergency oil reserves from other Group of Eight leaders at a summit this weekend before the European Union's July embargo of Iranian crude, Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday. The report suggests that a slide in oil prices to their lowest in months has not halted U.S. efforts to use strategic oil stockpiles to offset diminishing exports from Iran, which is facing tough new sanctions on its oil industry. The EU ban on imports comes into full force in July. ...

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday that countries trying to "sow chaos" in Syria could be infected with it themselves, an apparent warning to Arab Gulf nations that back the insurgency aimed at forcing him from power. Assad's remarks, to a Russian TV channel, came after U.N. staff monitoring an increasingly shaky ceasefire were caught up in an attack that killed at least 21 people, and had to spend a night with rebel forces. ...

ROME/LONDON (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron will hold a video conference on Thursday ahead of this weekend's G8 meeting, officials said on Wednesday. The conversation would give the four European leaders a chance to prepare for the summit at Camp David and to discuss European economic issues, said a source in the Italian government. ...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Leaders of the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ religious order knew that their most famous priest had fathered a child for many months before they acknowledged it this week, a top Vatican official told Reuters on Wednesday. The once influential religious order, still in crisis following revelations that its founder was a sexual abuser with two secret families, suffered another major blow on Tuesday when American Father Thomas Williams admitted to having fathered a child with a woman in Rome. ...