By Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton BERLIN (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will unveil plans for a sharp reduction in nuclear warheads in a landmark speech at the Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday that comes 50 years after John F. Kennedy declared "Ich bin ein Berliner" in a defiant Cold War address. A senior U.S. administration official said Obama, on his first visit to the German capital as president, would signal his desire to cut deployed atomic weapons by up to one third below the level achieved in the last "New START" treaty with Russia. "The U.S. ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has decided to suspend talks on a security pact with the United States, accusing Washington of mixed messages regarding peace talks with the Taliban, his spokesman said on Wednesday. "In a special meeting chaired by President Hamid Karzai, the president has decided to suspend talks about a security pact with the U.S. because of their inconsistent statements and actions in regard to the peace process," spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters. ...

By Todd Benson SAO PAULO (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday sought to defuse a massive protest movement sweeping Brazil, acknowledging the need for better public services and more responsive governance as demonstrations continued in some cities around the country. Speaking the morning after more than 200,000 Brazilians marched in more than a half-dozen cities, Rousseff said her government remains committed to social change and is listening attentively to the many grievances expressed at the demonstrations. ...

By Mark Felsenthal, Warren Strobel and Hamid Shalizi WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - The United States and the Taliban raised hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan with commitments to meet this week after 12 years of bloody and costly war between American-led forces and the insurgents. The Taliban opened an office in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Tuesday to help restart talks and said it wanted a political solution that would bring about a just government and end foreign occupation of Afghanistan. U.S. ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A loud explosion was heard near a military site in the Syrian port city of Latakia on Wednesday, an opposition monitoring group said, but the cause of the blast was unclear. Explosions in Latakia, part of President Bashar al-Assad's stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, have been extremely rare during Syria's two-year-old conflict. Residents on Twitter and a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blast appeared to have hit the southern outskirts of the city. (Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Years before he became Iran's president-elect, Hassan Rohani spoke approvingly about concealing his nation's nuclear program and said that when Pakistan got atomic bombs and Brazil began enriching uranium, "the world started to work with them. ...

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the most significant antiabortion legislation in 10 years: the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Two pragmatic Senate Republicans are working furiously with Senate immigration reformers to strike a compromise on a package of amendments to the bipartisan reform bill, offering up the Senate’s most realistic chance of passing a reform bill with the slew of GOP votes that the bill’s authors have long coveted.

The House GOP is tied up in knots over immigration reform.

The announcement by US officials Tuesday of imminent peace talks between the Afghan government and representatives of the Taliban adds an additional hopeful note to a day when NATO formally announced the full turnover of security leadership to Afghan forces.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Tens of thousands of Brazilians again flooded the streets of the country's biggest city to raise a collective cry against a longstanding lament — people are weighed down by high taxes and high prices but get low-quality public services and a system of government infected with corruption.

BERLIN (AP) — Five years and 50 years. As President Barack Obama revisits Berlin, he can't escape those anniversaries and the inevitable comparisons to history and personal achievement.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross urged a military judge Tuesday to refuse a request to open its confidential communications with U.S. officials about conditions at Guantanamo Bay to the lawyers for the prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 terror attack.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan president on Wednesday suspended talks with the United States on a new security deal to protest the way his government was being left out of initial peace negotiations with the Taliban meant to find ways to end the nearly 12-year war.

GENEVA (AP) — The Syrian civil war contributed to pushing the numbers of refugees and those displaced by conflict within their own nation to an 18-year high of 45.2 million worldwide by the end of 2012, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The World Bank says it will increasingly view its efforts to help developing countries fight poverty through a "climate lens."

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A loud explosion was heard near the Somali capital's heavily-fortified international airport on Wednesday followed by bursts of gunfire, a Reuters witness said. A plume of thick black smoke billowed into the sky above Mogadishu, a city that has been dogged by suicide bomb attacks since al Qaeda-linked militants were driven out almost two years ago. (Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Editing by Richard Lough and Janet Lawrence)

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Cu Huy Ha Vu's books come with pages torn out by prison guards. Only some of his letters reach home. He is not allowed to access evidence from his trial or to see his wife alone.

MILAN (AP) — The former head of the Italian aerospace and defense giant Finmeccanica goes on trial in a case involving alleged bribes to win a 560 million euro ($670 million) helicopter contract in India.

LONDON (AP) — British bankers could soon be facing harsher penalties for behaving badly.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB on Wednesday said profits fell by 11 percent in the second quarter due to the strong Swedish krona and increased markdowns as it tried to shift its products.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Authorities in central China executed a former Communist Party official for raping 11 underage girls, state media said on Wednesday, following an online uproar about the latest case of abuse of power. Li Xingong, who was the party's deputy head in Yongcheng city in Henan province, was found guilty of assaulting the girls during police interrogations starting from the second half of 2011, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Li appealed against the guilty verdict, but was rejected by the Supreme Court, Xinhua said. ...

LE BOURGET, France (AP) — Boeing Co. says it is selling 30 of its new generation 737-MAX 8 jets, extending the popularity of the fuel-efficient short-haul aircraft at the Paris Air Show.

The image was stark — a silent, solitary figure standing in passive defiance to the Turkish prime minister's demand for protesters to clear Taksim Square in central Istanbul.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban claimed responsibility Wednesday for an attack in Afghanistan that killed four American troops just hours after the insurgent group announced it would hold talks with the U.S. on finding a political solution to ending the nearly 12-year war in the country.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and their junior coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), are on course to win enough votes to form a narrow majority, a poll showed on Wednesday, before an election on September 22. Together with the FDP, Merkel's conservatives would take 46 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election, the Forsa poll showed. The three main opposition parties - the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the far-left Linke (Left) party - would get 45 percent. ...

GENEVA (AP) — The Syrian civil war contributed to push the numbers of refugees and those displaced by conflict within their own nation to an 18-year high of 45.2 million worldwide by the end of 2012, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday.

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. refugee agency says more than 45.2 million people were forced to flee homes last year, an 18-year high mainly due to wars in Syria, Afghanistan and other countries.

The image was stark — a silent, solitary figure standing in passive defiance to the Turkish prime minister's demand for protesters to clear Taksim Square in central Istanbul.

CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — Mexican authorities have arrested a former university professor who was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in the resort city of Playa del Carmen.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have claimed responsibility for an attack in Afghanistan that killed four U.S. troops just hours after the insurgent group announced it would hold talks with the Americans on finding a political solution to ending the nearly 12-year war.

BERLIN (AP) — President Barack Obama on Wednesday will renew his call to reduce the world's nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, a senior administration official said.