In Indian student's gang rape, murder, two worlds collide

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - One of hundreds of attacks reported in New Delhi each year, the gang rape and murder of a medical student caught Indian authorities and political parties flat-footed, slow to see that the assault on a private bus had come to symbolize an epidemic of crime against women.

In the moments before the December 16 attack, the 23-year-old woman from India's urban middle class, who had recently qualified as a trainee physiotherapist in a private Delhi hospital, and her male friend, a software engineer, were walking home from a cinema at a shopping mall in south Delhi, according to a police reconstruction of events.

A bus, part of a fleet of privately owned vehicles used as public transport across the city of 16 million, and known as India's "rape capital", was at the same time heading toward them. Earlier that day, it had ferried school students but was now empty except for five men and a teenage boy, including its crew, police said. Most of the men were from the city's slums.

One of the six - all now charged with murder - lured the couple onto the bus, promising to drop the woman home, police have said, quoting from an initial statement that she gave from her hospital bed before her condition deteriorated rapidly.

A few minutes into the ride, her friend, 28, grew suspicious when the bus deviated from the supposed route and the men locked the door, according to her statement. They then taunted her for being out with a man late at night, prompting the friend to intervene and provoking an initial scuffle.

The attackers then beat him with a metal rod, knocking him unconscious, before turning on the woman who had tried to come to his defense. Police say the men admitted after their arrest to torturing and raping the student "to teach her a lesson".

At one point, the bus driver gave the wheel to another of the accused and dragged the woman by the neck to the back of the vehicle and forced himself upon her. The other five then took turns raping her and also driving the bus, keeping it circling through the busy streets of India's capital city, police said.

The woman was raped for nearly an hour before the men pushed a metal rod inside her, severely damaging her internal organs, and then dumped both her and her friend on the roadside, 8 km (5 miles) from where they had boarded it, police said.

Robbed of their clothes and belongings, they were found half naked, bleeding and unconscious later that night by a passerby, who alerted the police.

Last year, a rape was reported on average every 20 minutes in India. Just 26 percent of the cases resulted in convictions, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which registered 24,206 rapes in 2011, up from 22,141 the previous year.

At first, authorities treated the assault on the medical student as one crime among many, and they were not prepared for the furious public reaction that led to running battles between protesters and police near the heart of government in New Delhi.

FAMILY ROLE MODEL

The woman, whose identity has been withheld by police, gave her statement to a sub-divisional magistrate on December 21 in the intensive care unit of Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, according to media reports. She was undergoing multiple surgical procedures and her condition later began to rapidly worsen.

Ten days after the attack and still in a critical condition, she was flown to Singapore for specialist treatment. She died in Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital two days later. Her body was flown back to Delhi and cremated there on Sunday in a private ceremony.

Family members who had accompanied her to Singapore declined to speak to reporters, but relatives told the Times of India newspaper she had been a role model to her two younger brothers.

Unlike most traditional Indian families who only send their sons to fee-paying colleges or universities, her parents pinned their hopes on the daughter and took loans to fund her studies.

She was born and brought up in a middle class Delhi neighborhood after her family moved to the city more than 20 years ago from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Her male friend recorded his statement to a court days after the attack and helped police identify the six accused. He left for his hometown in Uttar Pradesh late on Saturday, missing the woman's funeral, media reported.

SHAME, ANGER IN SLUM

Four of the accused, all in custody, live in the narrow by-lanes of Ravi Das Camp, a slum about 17 km (11 miles) from the woman's home in southwest Delhi. Inside the slum - home to some 1,200 people who eke out a meager living as rickshaw pullers and tea hawkers - many demanded the death penalty for the accused.

"The incident has really shocked all of us. I don't know how I will get my children admitted to a school. The incident has earned a bad name to this place," said Pooja Kumari, a neighbor of one of the accused.

Girija Shankar, a student, said: "Our heads hang in shame because of the brutal act of these men. They must reap what they have sown."

The house of one of the accused was locked, with neighbors saying his family had left the city to escape the shame and anger. Meena, a 45-year-old neighbor, said she had wanted to join the protests that followed the rape, but was too scared.

"You never know when a mob may attack this slum and attack our houses. But we want to say we're as angry as the entire nation. We want them to be hanged," she said.

Two of the six alleged assailants come from outside Delhi, according to police. One is married with children and was arrested in his native village in Bihar state and the other, a juvenile, is a runaway from a broken home in Uttar Pradesh.

In India, murder is punishable by death by hanging, except in the case of offenders aged below 18.

(Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty and Nita Bhalla; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Ian Geoghegan)

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Explosions across Iraq kill at least 10, wound 46

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Explosions killed at least 10 people and wounded 46 across Iraq on Monday, police said, underlining sectarian and ethnic divisions that threaten to further destabilize the country a year after U.S. troops left.

Tensions between Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been on the rise this year. Militants continue to strike almost daily, and carry out at least one big attack a month.

The latest violence followed more than a week of protests against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by thousands of people from the country's minority Sunni community.

No group claimed responsibility for any of Monday's attacks, which targeted government officials, police patrols and members of both the Sunni and Shi'ite sects.

Seven people from the same Sunni family were killed by a bomb planted near their home in the town of Mussayab, south of Baghdad.

In the Shi'ite majority city of Hilla, also in the south, a parked car bomb went off near the convoy of the governor of Babil province, missing him but killing two other people, police said.

"We heard the sound of a big explosion and the windows of our office shattered. We immediately lay on the ground," said 28-year-old Mohammed Ahmed, who works at a hospital near the site of the explosion.

"After a few minutes I stood up and went to the windows to see what happened. I saw flames and people lying on the ground."

Although violence is far lower than during the sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007, about 2,000 people have been killed in Iraq this year following the withdrawal last December of U.S. troops, who led an invasion in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Monday's violence also included a series of blasts that killed three people in Iraq's disputed territories, over which both the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region claim jurisdiction.

Two of those deaths were in the oil-producing, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, where a bomb exploded as a police team tried to defuse it.

Baghdad and Kurdistan are locked in a feud over land and oil rights and recently deployed their respective armies to the swathe of territory along their contested internal boundary, where they are currently facing off against each other.

Efforts to ease the standoff stalled when President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd seen as a steadying influence, suffered a stroke and was flown abroad for medical care earlier this month.

Maliki then detained the bodyguards of his Sunni finance minister, which sparked protests by thousands in the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold on the border with Syria.

Protesters are demanding an end to what they see as the marginalization of Iraq's Sunni minority, which dominated the country until the U.S.-led invasion. They want Maliki to abolish anti-terrorism laws they say are used to persecute them.

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, himself a Sunni, was forced to flee the epicenter of the protests in Anbar's city of Ramadi when demonstrators pelted him with stones and bottles.

(Reporting by Ali al-Rubaie in Hilla, Mustafa Mahmoud and Omar Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ali Mohammed in Baquba and Aseel Kami in Baghdad; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Assad's forces push to retake Damascus suburb

AMMAN (Reuters) - Heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Damascus on Monday as elite troops backed by tanks tried to recapture a strategic suburb from rebels in one of the largest military operations in that district in months, opposition activists said.

Five people, including one child, died from army rocket fire that hit Daraya, the activists said. Daraya is one of a series of interconnected Sunni Muslim suburbs that ring Syria's capital and have been at the forefront of the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

"This is the biggest attack on Daraya in two months. An armored column is trying to advance but it being held (back) by the Free Syrian Army," said Abu Kinan, an opposition activist in the area, referring to a rebel group.

He said that tens of thousands of civilians had fled Daraya during weeks of government assault but that 5,000 remained, along with hundreds of rebels. Daraya is located near the main southern highway leading to the Jordanian border 85 kms (50 miles) to the south.

Activists said the military is trying to push back rebels who have been slowly advancing from the outskirts of Damascus to within striking distance of central districts inhabited by Assad's Alawite minority sect.

Assad's forces have mostly relied on aerial and artillery bombardment, rather than infantry. Rebels have been able take several outlying towns and have clashed with government troops near Damascus International Airport, halting flights by foreign airlines.

Another activist in Damascus with connection to rebels, who did not want to be named, said Daraya has been a firing position for rebels using mortars and homemade rockets. From it, they have been able to hit a huge presidential complex located at a hilltop overlooking Damascus and target pro-Assad shabbiha militia in an Alawite enclave nearby known as Mezze 86.

"So far they have missed the palace but they are getting better. I think the regime has realized that it no longer can afford to have such a threat so close by, but it has failed to overrun Daraya before," he said.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Oliver Holmes and Peter Graff)

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Chinese dissidents in rare visit to Nobel laureate's wife

BEIJING (Reuters) - A small group of Chinese dissidents forced their way past security guards last week to visit the detained wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and deliver a message of support, one of the dissidents said on Monday.

Liu, a veteran dissident involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests crushed by the Chinese army, won the prize in 2010. He was jailed the year before and is serving an 11-year sentence.

His wife Liu Xia is under house arrest. She is rarely allowed out and is almost never allowed to receive visitors.

Family friend and fellow dissident Hu Jia said he and a small group barged past guards at the apartment in Beijing's western suburbs on Friday - Liu Xiaobo's birthday - to be greeted by a tearful and surprised Liu Xia.

"I feel it is our right as Chinese citizens to go and see her," Hu told Reuters.

"I told her about the 134 Nobel laureates who have called on the government to release her and her husband. She was overjoyed to hear about this, but she also felt a sense of hopelessness that the government would pay no attention," he added.

"All I could say was that she should not give up hope."

Hu said the visit lasted just a few minutes, and that Liu Xia expressed a fear the government would take retribution against her for the meeting. He later uploaded a video of the visit to YouTube.

The Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama and author Toni Morrison, wrote to Communist Party chief Xi Jinping earlier this month, urging him to release detained Liu and his wife.

China says Liu is a criminal and should be treated as such, dismissing criticism of the case as unwarranted interference in its internal affairs. Liu's wife has not been convicted of any crime despite being under house arrest.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Egypt's Mursi sees pound stabilizing "within days"

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's president held out hope that a weakening pound could stabilize within days under a new regime implemented to fend off financial ruin and safeguard reserves needed to ensure food and fuel imports in a political crisis.

Hit by political turmoil in the last month, the currency weakened to a record low on Sunday in a new dollar auctioning system implemented by the central bank.

The official rate worsened further at its second auction on Monday, with banks taking up the $75 million on offer at a cut off rate of 6.305, sending its traded market rate to a record low of around 6.35 per dollar.

"The market will return to stability," President Mohamed Mursi said in remarks during a meeting with Arab journalists on Sunday evening, the state news agency MENA reported.

The pound's fall "does not worry or scare us, and within days matters will balance out," he added.

The auctions are part of a shift announced on Saturday and designed to conserve foreign reserves, which the bank says are now at "critical" levels that cover just three months of the food, fuel and other goods Egypt imports.

The head of the Egyptian banking federation said the new system of foreign exchange auctions was an "important first step" towards a free float of the pound.

Tarek Amer, who is also chairman of Egypt's largest bank, state-owned National Bank of Egypt, said the new system was a success on its first day and had "significantly reduced" demand for dollars.

The central bank accepted bids worth $74.8 million on Monday, with the cut-off price weakening from 6.2425 Egyptian pounds on Sunday. Before the first sale on Sunday it had traded as strong on the interbank market as 6.185 to the dollar.

Political turmoil over a new constitution has sent worried Egyptians scrambling to turn their savings into dollars, prompting officials last week to impose controls on how much cash could be physically carried out of the country.

The changes announced on Saturday include regular foreign currency auctions and commercial bank officials say they point to an orderly devaluation of the pound after the central bank spent more than $20 billion - or more than half of its reserves - over the past two years to defend the currency.

The currency crisis underlines the scale of the economic challenge facing President Mursi, who has been grappling with the fall-out of a political crisis ignited by his move to drive through a constitution written by his Islamist allies.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Patrick Graham)

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Envoy wants Syria solution in 2013

CAIRO (Reuters) - The international peace envoy for Syria said the situation in the country was deteriorating sharply but a solution was still possible under the terms of a peace plan agreed in Geneva in June.

He said the state would collapse without a solution, reiterating warnings that the country could turn into "hell" and a new Somalia.

"I say that the solution must be this year: 2013, and, God willing, before the second anniversary of this crisis," Lakhdar Brahimi said at a news conference at the Arab League in Cairo, referring to the start of the uprising in March 2011.

"A solution is still possible but is getting more complicated every day," he added. "We have a proposal and I believe this proposal is adopted by the international community."

Brahimi is the joint U.N-Arab League envoy charged with trying to mediate an end to a conflict that has killed at least 44,000 people. "The situation in Syria is bad, very, very bad, and it is getting worse and the pace of deterioration is increasing," he said.

"People are talking about Syria being split into a number of small states ... this is not what will happen, what will happen is Somalization: war lords," he said.

Somalia has been without effective central government since civil war broke out there in 1991.

Brahimi, referring to the Geneva plan, said: "There are sound foundations to build a peace process through which the Syrians themselves can end the war and fighting and to build the future."

The plan included a ceasefire, the formation of a government and steps towards elections, either for a new president, or a new parliament. But it left the fate of President Bashar al-Assad unclear although the Syrian opposition and foreign governments who back them insist he must go.

(Reporting by Maria Golovnina and Tom Perry; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Israel eases ban on building material for Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel eased its blockade of Gaza on Sunday, allowing a shipment of gravel for private construction into the Palestinian territory for the first time since Hamas seized control in 2007.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that ended eight days of fighting last month between Israel and Gaza militants said the move had been expected as part of the deal.

"This is the first time gravel has been allowed into Gaza for the Palestinian private sector since the blockade," said Raed Fattouh, the Palestinian official overseeing the shipment of 20 truckloads of the material.

Israel tightened the blockade after Hamas, an Islamist group that refuses to recognize the Jewish state, took power five years ago. But under international pressure, Israel began to ease the restrictions in 2010 and has allowed international aid agencies to import construction material.

The gravel was transferred a day after Egypt allowed building material into Gaza through its Rafah crossing, departing from a six-year ban. It was part of a shipment donated by the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, which has pledged $400 million to finance reconstruction.

Gaza economists say nearly 70 percent of the enclave's commercial needs - including building material and fuel - were being met through shipments via Israel and a network of smuggling tunnels running under the Egyptian border.

One Palestinian official said Israeli counterparts had promised "other building items" would be allowed into Gaza in the coming days.

"Israel has promised to ease the blockade more if the truce continues to hold," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, said more than 300 truckloads of goods have been moving from Israel to the Gaza Strip on a daily basis.

"They can have much more if they would like to," he said.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Angus MacSwan)

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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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Sunni protesters attack Iraq official's convoy, guards wound two

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Bodyguards for Iraq's deputy prime minister wounded two people when they fired warning shots at Sunni protesters who pelted his convoy with bottles and stones on Sunday, witnesses said.

The incident took place the city of Ramadi in western Anbar province, to where Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq had travelled to address people in an attempt to defuse sectarian tensions.

Thousands of Iraqi Sunnis have taken to the streets and blocked a main highway over the past week in protest against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whom they accuse of discriminating against their community and being under the sway of non-Arab neighbor Iran.

"Leave! Leave!" the protesters shouted at Mutlaq, himself a Sunni.

Mutlaq's guards opened fire to disperse the crowd after they threw objects at his convoy. Two people were wounded, the witness said

"It's only now Mutlaq comes to attend the protest and after seven days. He came to undermine the protest," Saeed al-Lafi, a spokesman for the protesters, told Reuters.

Protesters are demanding an end to marginalization of Iraq's Sunni minority, which dominated the country until the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

They want Maliki to abolish anti-terrorism laws they say are used to persecute them.

Echoing slogans used in popular revolts that brought down leaders in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Yemen, protesters have also been calling on Maliki to step down.

"Is this the way to deal with peaceful protesters? To shoot them? This is really outrageous," said protester Ghazwan al-Fahdawi, displaying empty bullet casings from shots he said had been fired by Mutlaq's guards.

In the northern city of Mosul, the provincial council called a three-day strike starting from next Friday to press Baghdad to release women prisoners and stop targeting Sunni politicians.

Protests flared last week in Anbar province after troops loyal to Maliki detained bodyguards of his finance minister, a Sunni.

That came just hours after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd seen as a steadying influence on the country's tumultuous politics, was flown abroad for medical care.

A year after U.S. troops left, sectarian friction, as well as tension over land and oil between Arabs and ethnic Kurds, threaten renewed unrest and are hampering efforts to repair the damage of years of violence and exploit Iraq's energy riches.

(Reporting by Kamal Naama, Ahmed Rasheed and Sufyan al-Mashhadani in Mosul; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Central Africa states to up troops in Central African Republic ahead of peace talks

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Central African Republic's neighbors have agreed to increase the number of troops stationed there to help defend against rebels threatening to overthrow the government.

The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) - which already has more than 500 peacekeepers in CAR - announced its decision overnight in Gabon's capital Libreville, ahead of peace talks planned between the SELEKA rebels and the government in early January.

The insurgency poses the biggest threat yet to President Francois Bozize's nearly ten years in charge of the nation, which has remained poor since independence from France in 1960 despite rich deposits of uranium, gold and diamonds.

"We are thinking of a way to deploy this mission as quickly as possible," Gabon Foreign Minister Emmanuel Issoze Ngondet told reporters after a meeting with his regional counterparts. He did not say how many soldiers would be deployed.

The ECCAS troops, mostly from Chad, are part of the MICOPAX (Mission for the consolidation of peace in Central African Republic) peacekeeping force, but have been unable to prevent a rebel advance to within 75 km (45 miles) of the capital Bangui since early December.

The SELEKA rebels have threatened to overthrow Bozize if he does not live up to a previous peace deal offering former fighters pay and jobs, but they have agreed to stay out of Bangui to allow for peace talks.

Officials in Bangui on Friday said rebels had agreed to send delegates to Libreville in early January. A rebel spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

Some clashes between government troops and rebel fighters were reported on the outskirts of Damara, 75 km north of Bangui, on Friday, and some residents of the capital were fleeing the city, fearing a fresh rebel push.

Clashes were also heard in Bambari, some 385 km northwest of Bangui, residents told Reuters.

Bozize came to power in a rebellion in 2003 and has since won two elections. France conducted air strikes against rebels challenging him in 2006, but Paris has said it will not intervene militarily in the current conflict.

The United States said on Thursday it had closed its embassy in Bangui and evacuated its staff.

Central African Republic is one of a number of countries 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.

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

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

(Additional reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana in Bangui; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Assad's forces seize Homs district from rebels: activists

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces have pushed rebels from a district in Homs after several days of fierce fighting in the strategically important city, opposition activists said on Saturday.

The army moved into Deir Ba'alba, a neighborhood on the northeastern edge of Homs, they said, leaving the rebels controlling just the central neighborhoods around the old city and the district of Khalidiyah, immediately to the north.

Homs, in central Syria, was the scene earlier this year of some of the heaviest fighting in the 21-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad which has killed at least 45,000 people, according to activist tallies.

On the junction of roads linking Assad's power base in Damascus to the heartlands of his Alawite minority in the port city of Tartous and Latakia province, Homs has strategic value in his battle with the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels.

There were unconfirmed reports that dozens of fighters had been killed in the battle for Deir Ba'alba, the director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said.

Rebels have been gaining ground in recent months, particularly in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, and launched an offensive in the central Hama province which would extend their control south towards Homs and Damascus.

But an activist in Hama province said on Saturday that the army had reinforced its positions in the town of Morek, which lies on the main north-south highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, to push back rebels who were running low on ammunition.

A rebel attack on the military base of Wadi Deif, further north on the same highway, had also slowed as rebels struggled to maintain supplies, the activist who used the name Ali al-Idlibi told Reuters by Skype.

He also said Assad's forces had bombarded the provincial town of Karnaz in Hama on Saturday, killing 10 people. Other activists said 12 people were wounded, with no fatalities. It is not possible to verify reports from Syria because authorities restrict media operations in the country.

Activists also said a Palestinian fighter who had been a prominent figure in the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was killed in Aleppo province on Friday.

Mohammed Qanita was killed in fighting around Aleppo airport where he had been helping to train Arab and Muslim fighters, a rebel said.

A Hamas source in Gaza said Qanita had left the Qassam Brigade of Hamas and joined a jihadi group before leaving for Syria to fight there.

The exiled leadership of Hamas was based in Damascus until earlier this year, when officials from the Sunni Islamist movement, which sympathises with the uprising against Assad, quietly pulled out.

(Reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Only political process can save Syria from "hell": envoy

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The international mediator seeking peace in Syria warned of "hell" if no deal is struck to end 21 months of bloodshed, but his talks in Russia capping a week of intense diplomacy brought no sign of a breakthrough.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov both said there was still a chance for a negotiated solution to the conflict, which has killed more than 44,000 people and set world powers against one another.

But Lavrov firmly repeated Russia's stance that President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a political solution, saying that such demands were "wrong" and that the opposition's refusal to talk to the government was a "dead end".

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

Lavrov issued a similar exhortation in a joint appearance at an ornate mansion where he meets foreign dignitaries, saying: "The chance for a political settlement remains and it is our obligation to make maximal use of that chance."

But Lavrov, whose country has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions meant to put pressure on Assad, gave no indication it would back down from that stance.

"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."

Russia has tried to distance itself from Assad for months and seems to have stepped up its calls for a peaceful resolution as the rebels have gained ground against government forces in the conflict, which has began with peaceful protests in March 2011 but which has descended into a civil war.

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

Brahimi is trying to build on a plan agreed in Geneva in June by the United States, Russia and other powers that called for a transitional government but left Assad's role unclear.

"The core of that political process ... is and must be the Geneva agreement," said Brahimi, who took over as the U.N.-Arab League envoy after Kofi Annan quit in frustration at divisions among world powers, chiefly the United States and Russia, and the failure of the Geneva accord to bring a resolution closer.

"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," he said, without elaborating.

Brahimi, who met Assad and others on a five-day trip to Syria this week, is to meet senior U.S. and Russian diplomats together in the coming weeks, after two such meetings this month that produced no signs of a breakthrough.

In Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government to rule until elections in Syria and said only substantial change would meet demands of ordinary Syrians, but did not specify who could be part of such a body.

A spokesman for the opposition National Coalition said on Friday the coalition "will not negotiate with the Assad regime", and its leader rebuffed Russia's first invitation for talks, demanding that Lavrov apologise for Russia's support for Assad and that Russia issue a clear call for him to step down.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Blast in Pakistan's Karachi kills six on bus, 48 hurt

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb went off on a bus in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on Saturday killing six people and wounding 48, police and a hospital official said.

Pakistan's commercial capital and biggest city has seen numerous militant attacks over the past 10 years and is also plagued by violence between rival ethnic-based factions.

The bus sustained serious damage in the explosion and a subsequent fire. While police said the bomb had been planted on the bus, provincial official Sharfud Din Memon said it was left on a motor-bike and went off as the bus passed.

Eight of the wounded were in critical condition, said Seemi Jamali, a doctor at Jinnah Hospital.

(Writing By Katharine Houreld; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Indian gang rape victim dies; protesters defy lock-down

NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A woman whose gang rape sparked protests and a national debate about violence against women in India died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting a security lockdown in New Delhi and an acknowledgement from India's prime minister that social change is needed.

The six suspects held in connection with the December 16 attack on the 23-year-old medical student on a New Delhi bus were charged with murder following her death, police said. The maximum penalty for murder is death.

Earlier, bracing for a new wave of protests, Indian authorities deployed thousands of policemen, closed 10 metro stations and banned vehicles from some main roads in the heart of New Delhi, where demonstrators have converged since the attack to demand improved women's rights.

Despite efforts to cordon off the city centre, more than 1,000 people gathered for peaceful protests at two locations. Some protesters shouted for justice, others for the death penalty for the rapists.

The woman severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for treatment.

The intense media coverage of the attack and the use of social media to galvanize protests, mostly by young middle-class students, has forced political leaders to confront some uncomfortable truths about the treatment of women in the world's largest democracy.

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 need of the hour is a dispassionate debate and inquiry into the critical changes that are required in societal attitudes," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement.

"I hope that the entire political class and civil society will set aside narrow sectional interests and agenda to help us all reach the end that we all desire - making India a demonstrably better and safer place for women to live in."

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in the northern Indian city of Lucknow. In Hyderabad, in southern India, a group of women marched to demand severe punishment for the rapists. Protests were also held in the cities of Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai.

The demonstrations were peaceful, unlike last weekend, when police used batons, water cannon and teargas in clashes with protesters.

Sonia Gandhi, the powerful leader of the ruling Congress party, directly addressed the protesters in a rare broadcast on state television, saying that as a mother and a woman she understood their grievances.

"Your voice has been heard," Gandhi said. "It deepens our determination to battle the pervasive and the shameful social attitudes that allow men to rape and molest women with such impunity."

The Indian government has chartered an aircraft to fly the student's body back to India on Saturday, along with members of her family, T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian high commissioner to Singapore, told reporters.

The body was taken to a Hindu casket firm in Singapore for embalming. Indian diplomats selected a gold and yellow coffin to transport her home, staff at the firm told reporters.

"She was courageous in fighting for her life for so long against the odds but the trauma to her body was too severe for her to overcome," Kelvin Loh, chief executive officer of the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore said in a statement announcing her death from multiple organ failure.

The victim and a male friend were returning home from the cinema by bus when, media reports say, six men on the bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. Media said a rod was used in the rape, causing internal injuries. Both were thrown from the bus. The male friend survived.

Six suspects, from a slum in south Delhi, are in custody.

The attack has put gender issues centre stage in Indian politics arguably for the first time. Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide have rarely entered mainstream political discourse.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure," by some 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.

WORST PLACE

The outcry over the attack caught the government off-guard and it was slow to reach. It took a week for Singh to make a statement on the attack, infuriating many protesters who saw it as a sign of a government insensitive to the plight of women.

The prime minister, a stiff 80-year-old technocrat who speaks in a low monotone, has struggled to channel the popular outrage in his public statements and convince critics that his eight-year-old government will now take concrete steps to improve the safety of women.

"The Congress managers were ham-handed in their handling of the situation that arose after the brutal assault on the girl. The crowd management was poor," a lawmaker from Singh's ruling Congress party said on condition of anonymity.

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.

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.

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

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy, Satarupa Bhattacharjya, Diksha Madhok, Shashank Chouhan and Suchitra Mohanty in Delhi, Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow, Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata, Anupama Chandrasekaran in Chennai, Kevin Lim, Saeed Azhar, Edgar Su and Sanjeev Miglani in Singapore; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Robert Birsel)

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Netanyahu set to win Israel election but rightists gain: polls

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party is set to win a parliamentary election on January 22 although the popularity of a far-right party opposed to Palestinian statehood is growing, polls showed on Friday.

Two out of three surveys showed the right-wing Likud losing voters to political newcomer Naftali Bennett's religious party Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home)and to a fractured center-left bloc.

All still predicted a strong right-wing coalition emerging in the 120-seat parliament, which would assure Netanyahu another term.

The daily Yedioth Ahronoth published a poll with Likud winning 33 seats, four less than a month ago. A poll in the Jerusalem Post showed Likud fell to 34, down from 39 just two weeks ago. A survey by Maariv said Likud held ground at 37.

Without a majority in parliament, Likud would have to join forces with other parties to form a government. Netanyahu could choose Bennett and ultra-Orthodox religious parties or team up with members of the center-left bloc.

The left-leaning Labor party remained in second place in all the polls, winning 17 or 18 seats.

Bennett's party platform rejects a two-state solution with the Palestinians and is staunchly in favor of settlement building in the occupied West Bank - an issue which has stalled peace talks.

All the polls show him on an upward trend, winning between 12 and 14 seats.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Pakistan Taliban chief says group will negotiate, but not disarm

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - The head of Pakistan's Taliban said his militia is willing to negotiate with the government but not disarm, a message delivered in a video given to Reuters on Friday.

The release of the 40-minute video follows three high-profile Taliban attacks in the northern city of Peshawar this month: an attack by multiple suicide bombers on the airport, the killing of a senior politician and eight others in a bombing and the kidnap of 22 paramilitary forces on Thursday.

The attacks underline the Taliban's ability to strike high-profile, well-protected targets even as the amount of territory it controls has shrunk and its leaders are picked off by U.S. drones.

"We believe in dialogue but it should not be frivolous," Hakimullah Mehsud said. "Asking us to lay down arms is a joke."

In the video, Mehsud sits cradling a rifle next to his deputy, Wali ur-Rehman. Military officials say there has been a split between the two men but Mehsud said that was propaganda.

"Wali ur-Rehman is sitting with me here and we will be together until death," said Mehsud, pointing at his companion.

Pakistani officials did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

The Taliban said in a letter released Thursday that they wanted Pakistan to rewrite its laws and constitution to conform with Islamic law, break its alliance with the United States and stop interfering in the war in Afghanistan and focus on India instead.

Mehsud referred to the killing of the senior politician in his speech and said the political party, the largely Pashtun Awami National Party, would continue to be a target along with other politicians.

"We are against the democratic system because it is un-Islamic," Mehsud said. "Our war isn't against any party. It is against the non-Islamic system and anyone who supports it."

Pakistan is due to hold elections next spring. The current government, which came to power five years ago, struck an uneasy deal with the Taliban in 2009 that allowed the militia to control Swat valley, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.

A few months later, the military launched an operation that pushed the militants back. The U.S. military also intensified its use of drone strikes.

Now the Taliban control far less territory and the frequency and deadliness of their bombings has declined dramatically.

The Taliban's key stronghold is in North Waziristan, one of the tribal areas along the Afghan border and the site of most of the hundreds of drone strikes by the United States.

Mehsud said in his interview that although he was open to dialogue, the Pakistani government was to blame for the violence because it broke previous, unspecified deals.

"In the past, it is the Pakistani government that broke peace agreements," he said. "A slave of the U.S. can't make independent agreements; it breaks agreements according to U.S. dictat."

Mehsud said that the Pakistan Taliban would follow the lead of the Afghan Taliban when it came to forming policy after most NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014.

"We are Afghan Taliban and Afghan Taliban are us," he said. "We are with them and al Qaida. We are even willing to get our heads cut off for al Qaida."

(Writing By Katharine Houreld; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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China tightens loophole on hiring temporary workers

BEIJING (Reuters) - China amended its labor law on Friday to ensure that workers hired through contracting agents are offered the same conditions as full employees, a move meant to tighten a loophole used by many employers to maintain flexible staffing.

Contracting agencies have taken off since China implemented the Labor Contract Law in 2008, which stipulates employers must pay workers' health insurance and social security benefits and makes firing very difficult.

"Hiring via labor contracting agents should be arranged only for temporary, supplementary and backup jobs," the amendment reads, according to the Xinhua news agency. It takes effect on July 1, 2013.

Contracted laborers now make up about a third of the workforce at many Chinese and multinational factories, and in some cases account for well over half.

Some foreign representative offices, all news bureaus and most embassies are required to hire Chinese staff through employment agencies, rather than directly.

Under the amendment, "temporary" refers to durations of under six months, while supplementary workers would replace staff who are on maternity or vacation leave, Kan He, vice chairman of the legislative affairs commission of the National People's Congress standing committee, said at a press conference to introduce the legislation.

The main point is that contracting through agencies should not become the main channel for employment, he said, acknowledging that the definition of backup might differ by industry.

"In order to prevent abuse, the regulations control the total numbers and the proportion of workers that can be contracted through agencies and companies cannot expand either number or proportion at whim," Kan said.

"The majority of workers at a company should be under regular labor contracts."

Although in theory contracted or dispatch workers are paid the same, with benefits supplied by the agencies who are legally their direct employers, in practice many contracted workers, especially in manufacturing industries and state-owned enterprises, do not enjoy benefits and are paid less.

Employment agencies have been set up by local governments and even by companies themselves to keep an arms-length relationship with workers. Workers who are underpaid, fired or suffer injury often find it very difficult to pursue compensation through agencies.

China would increase inspections for violations, Kan said, including the practice of chopping a longer contract into several contracts of shorter duration to maintain the appearance of "temporary" work.

Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. said in November that it would require its 249 supplier factories in China to cap the number of temporary or contracted workers at 30 percent of regular full-time employees.

It announced the corrective measure after Chinese labor activists reported violations of overtime rules and working conditions as well as under-age workers at Samsung suppliers. Samsung says its own audit did not find workers under China's legal working age of 16.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Syria opposition rebuffs Russian call for talks

ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia invited the leader of Syria's opposition on Friday to visit for the first time, but the opposition swiftly dismissed a renewed call by Moscow for talks with President Bashar al-Assad's government to end the 21-month civil war.

With the rebels advancing over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Assad's main international backer, Moscow, will withdraw its protection.

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," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

That was immediately dismissed by the opposition National Coalition: "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."

But Moscow's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, also invited National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib to visit, its first such overture to the head of the body formed last month and since recognized by most Western and Arab states as Syria's legitimate representative.

Spokesman Bunni did not say whether Alkhatib would accept the invitation, saying Moscow's intentions were unclear.

U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad, is due in Moscow for talks on Saturday. Brahimi has been touting a months-old peace plan which calls for a transitional government.

That U.N. plan has long been widely seen as a dead letter, foundering at 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, saying countries were not committed to a deal.

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 peace plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.

Bogdanov 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 a ceremonial role.

"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," Brahimi said.

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.

"We will not allow anyone to trade in the blood of the martyrs of Syria and the sacrifices that Syrians have made by having someone propose any proposal that keeps Bashar al-Assad (in office)."

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.

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 the need to adapt its position 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.

"I think that not only Moscow - which has so far been holding onto the idea that there were enough resources for Assad to hang on for a long time - is beginning to understand this, but also Damascus."

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.

The bombardment may have included areas in Qalamoun from which the army withdrew on Thursday, the observatory said. Its accounts could not be verified.

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

Most of the dead have been civilians. Both sides have committed atrocities, although the United Nations says government forces and their allies have been more culpable.

Footage uploaded to the internet on Friday showed young men beating the bloody corpse of another man with a stick. One reaches down with a knife and gleefully slices off an ear.

Opposition activists said the footage showed government-allied militia members desecrating bodies, but its provenance could not be confirmed.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff in Beirut and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Putin signs ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that bans Americans from adopting Russian children and imposes other sanctions in retaliation for a new U.S. human rights law that he says is poisoning relations.

The law, which has ignited outrage among Russian liberals and child rights' advocates, takes effect on January 1. Washington has called the law misguided and said it ties the fate of children to "unrelated political considerations."

It is likely to deepen a chill in U.S.-Russian relations and deal a blow to Putin's image abroad.

Fifty-two children whose adoptions by American parents were underway will remain in Russia, Interfax news agency cited Russia's child rights commissioner, Pavel Astakhov, as saying.

The law, whose text was issued by the Kremlin, will also outlaw some non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. funding and impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians abroad.

Pro-Kremlin lawmakers initially drafted the bill to mirror the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which bars entry to Russians accused of involvement in the death in custody of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other alleged rights abuses.

The restrictions on adoptions and non-profit groups were added to the legislation later, going beyond a tit-for-tat move and escalating a dispute with Washington at a time when ties are also strained by issues such as the Syrian crisis.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Magnitsky Act had "seriously undermined" the "reset" -- the moniker for the effort U.S. President Barack Obama launched early in his first term to improve relations between the former Cold War foes.

Putin has backed the hawkish response with a mix of public appeals to patriotism, saying Russia should care for its own children, and belligerent denunciations of what he says is the U.S. desire to impose its will on the world.

Seeking to dampen criticism of the move, Putin also signed a decree ordering an improvement in care for orphans.

Critics of the Russian legislation say Putin has held the welfare of children trapped in an crowded and troubled orphanage system hostage to political maneuvering.

"He signed it after all! He signed one of the most shameful laws in Russia history," a blogger named Yuri Pronko wrote on the popular Russian site LiveJournal.

BLOW TO RUSSIA'S IMAGE

The acquittal on Friday of the only person being tried over Magnitsky's death will fuel accusations by Kremlin critics that the Russian authorities have no intention of seeking justice in a case that has blackened Russia's image.

A Russian court on acquitted Dmitry Kratov, a former deputy head a jail where Magnitsky was held before his death in 2009 after nearly a year in pre-trial detention, after prosecutors themselves dropped charges against him.

Lawyers for Magnitsky's family said they will appeal and called for further investigation.

Magnitsky's colleagues say he is the victim of retribution from the same police investigators he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax refunds -- the very same crimes with which he was charged.

The case against Magnitsky was closed after his death but then was reopened again in August 2011.

In an unprecedented move, Russia is trying Magnitsky posthumously for fraud, despite protests from his family and the lawyers that it is unconstitutional to try a dead man. A preliminary hearing is scheduled next month.

Magnitsky's death triggered an international outcry and Kremlin critics said it underscored the dangers faced by Russians who challenge the authorities. The Kremlin's own human rights council said Magnitsky was probably beaten to death.

The adoption ban may further tarnish Putin's international standing at a time when the former KGB officer is under scrutiny over what critics say is a crackdown on dissent since he returned to the Kremlin for a six-year third term in May.

"The law will lead to a sharp drop in the reputation of the Kremlin and of Putin personally abroad, and signal a new phase in relations between the United States and Russia," said Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on Putin with the Carnegie Moscow Centre.

"It is only the first harbinger of a chill."

(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing By Steve Gutterman, Andrew Osborn and Roger Atwood)

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New India rape protests fizzle, victim airlifted to Singapore

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Police thwarted an attempt by activists on Thursday to rekindle mass protests in New Delhi over the gang rape and ferocious beating of a young woman, after the victim was airlifted to Singapore for specialist hospital care to save her life.

Demonstrations erupted in New Delhi after the December 16 attack, culminating last weekend in pitched battles between police and protesters around the city's India Gate war memorial.

However, activists who gathered on Thursday for a fresh march on India Gate were stopped by police in riot gear armed with tear gas and water cannons to hold them back.

"We will win back our freedom!" the protesters, mostly university students, shouted as they pushed against barricades on a road leading to the city's landmark monument. Unable to make further headway, the crowd dispersed as night fell.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex attacks among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to the National Crimes Records Bureau.

Most rapes and other sex crimes go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, but the brutality of the assault on the medical student in New Delhi triggered public outrage, demands for both better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

The 23-year-old victim, who was thrown out of a moving bus after being attacked by six men, was flown to Singapore on Wednesday night for treatment at the city-state's Mount Elizabeth Hospital, after more than a week of intensive care in a government hospital in New Delhi.

Dr. Kelvin Loh, chief executive officer of the Singapore hospital, said on Thursday evening that the woman was in "an extremely critical condition".

"Prior to her arrival, she has already undergone three abdominal surgeries, and experienced a cardiac arrest in India," Loh said. "A multi-disciplinary team of specialists is taking care of her and doing everything possible to stabilize her condition."

The outcry and spasm of violent protests over the case caught Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government off guard and set off a blame game between politicians and the police.

Singh digressed in a speech on economic planning on Thursday to stress that the safety and security of women was a priority issue for his government, and said there would be a review of the laws and levels of punishment for aggravated sexual assault.

But within an hour of that meeting, his Congress party was plunged into embarrassment over comments made by one of its lawmakers, Abhijit Mukherjee, son of the country's president.

Mukherjee described the anti-rape demonstrations as a "pink revolution" by women wearing heavy make-up who think it is fashionable to protest.

Quizzed repeatedly on news channels, Mukherjee said he regretted causing offence and apologized. However, his comments had already sparked a wave of fury on social media sites and even his own sister said she was "embarrassed" by her brother.

(Writing by Satarupa Bhattacharjya, Additional reporting by Arup Roychoudhury in New Delhi and Hasan Saeed in Singapore; Editing by John Chalmers and Ron Popeski)

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Peace envoy Brahimi, Syria diplomats in Moscow talks

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will host Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi this week after Syrian officials held talks in Moscow on Thursday as part of a diplomatic drive to try to agree a plan to end the 21-month-old conflict, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Talks have moved to Moscow, a long-time Syria ally, after a flurry of meetings Brahimi held in Damascus this week, but the international envoy has disclosed little about his negotiations.

Brahimi, who saw Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday and is planning to hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials and dissidents this week, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power.

More than 44,000 Syrians have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule, a conflict that began with peaceful protests in March last year, but which has descended into civil war.

Past peace efforts have floundered, with world powers divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad and an aide held talks for less than two hours on Thursday with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov, the Kremlin's envoy for Middle East affairs, but declined to disclose details of their visit.

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

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich played down the idea that a specific new proposal was on the table in Moscow talks, at least one agreed by Moscow and Washington.

Asked about rumors of a Russian-American plan to resolve the conflict, he said: "There has not been and is no such plan."

'TRYING TO FEEL A WAY OUT'

"In our talks with Mr. Brahimi and with our American colleagues, we are trying to feel a way out of this situation on the basis of our common plan of action that was agreed in Geneva in June," Lukashevich told reporters at a weekly briefing.

Setting the scene for a planned Russian meeting with Brahimi on Saturday, he said, "We plan to discuss a range of issues linked to a political and diplomatic settlement in Syria, including Brahimi's efforts aimed at ending the violence and the launch of a comprehensive national dialogue."

World powers believe Russia, which has given Assad military and diplomatic aid to help him weather the uprising, has the ear of Syria's government and must be a key player in peace talks.

Moscow has tried to distance itself from Assad in recent months and has said it is not propping him up, but Lukashevich reiterated its stance that Assad's exit from power could not be a precondition for negotiations.

Setting such a condition, he said, would violate the terms of an agreement reached by world powers in Geneva on June 30 that called for a transitional government in Syria.

Lukashevich said Russia continued to believe there was "no alternative" to the Geneva Declaration and repeated accusations that the United States has reneged on it.

"Our American colleagues and some others ... have turned sharply from this position, by 180 degrees, supporting the opposition and conducting no dialogue with the government - putting the opposition in the mood for no dialogue with the authorities but for overthrowing the authorities," he said.

"The biggest disagreement ... is that one side thinks Assad should leave at the start of the process - that is the U.S. position, and the other thinks his departure should be a result of the process - that would be the Russian position," Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told Reuters.

But Trenin said battlefield gains made by the Syrian rebels were narrowing the gap between Moscow and Washington.

On Saturday, Lavrov said that neither side would win Syria's civil war and that Assad would not quit even if Russia or China told him to. Bogdanov had earlier acknowledged that Syrian rebels might win.

Lavrov has said this month that Russia had no intention of offering Assad asylum and would not act as messenger for other nations seeking his exit.

(Additional reporting by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he saw no reason not to sign a bill into law that would ban Americans adopting Russian children and promised measures to improve care of his country's orphaned youngsters.

Although Putin said he would need to study the final text of the bill, the comments were the strongest indication yet that he will approve the adoption ban legislation, which has strained U.S.-Russia relations.

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

"So far I see no reason not to sign it, although I have to review the final text and weigh everything," Putin said in televised remarks at a meeting of senior federal and regional officials.

"I am ready 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 Russia is playing politics with the lives of children. Child rights advocates say children in Russia's crowded and troubled orphanage system will have less of a chance of finding homes if the bill becomes law.

(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Steve Guttermann and Andrew Osborn)

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Iran will open suspect military base if threats dropped: report

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran would let U.N nuclear inspectors into a military base they suspect was used for atomic weapons-related work, if threats against the Islamic Republic are dropped, a government official was quoted as saying.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes Iran conducted explosives tests with possible nuclear applications at Parchin, a sprawling military base southeast of Tehran, and has repeatedly asked to inspect it.

Western diplomats say Iran has carried out extensive work at Parchin over the past year to cleanse it of any evidence of illicit activities but IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said earlier this month a visit would still be "useful".

"If the trans-regional threats (against Iran) dissipate, then they will find it possible to visit Parchin," Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi was quoted by the Iranian Labour News Agency as saying on Wednesday. The comments were also published on Thursday by online magazine Iran Diplomacy.

Qashqavi was most likely referring to Israel's threat of military strikes against Iran and the possibility of further sanctions by the West.

Israel has said it will resort to military action if diplomacy fails to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear work is entirely peaceful.

Earlier this month, IAEA officials visited Iran to try to negotiate access to Parchin to resolve outstanding issues related to "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program.

Iran has repeatedly said that a wider agreement on the IAEA's inquiry must be reached before opening the site to inspectors.

(Reporting By Marcus George; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Christian politician quits Egypt upper house as tensions persist

CAIRO (Reuters) - A Christian member of Egypt's upper house of parliament quit on Thursday, reflecting persistent political tensions just a day after the Islamist-dominated chamber took over legislative authority under a contentious new constitution.

The Islamist-backed charter, approved in a referendum this month, is meant to be the cornerstone of a democratic and economically stable Egypt. But the opposition says it is too Islamist and does nothing to protect minorities.

The resignation of Nadia Henry, who represents the Anglican Church in the upper house, also highlights worries by Egypt's Christians, who make up about a tenth of its 83 million population, about political gains made by Islamists since Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a 2011 revolution.

Under pressure to show tolerance towards all groups, President Mohamed Mursi appointed 90 members including Christians, Liberals and women to the upper house - with Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Salafis - last week.

But in a resignation letter published by the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper, Henry said liberal and other minority groups were not represented properly in the chamber.

"I agreed to the membership of the Shura Council (upper house) in the context of consensus that stressed all civil forces will get appointed," Henry wrote.

"Since that did not happen, I hope you accept my apology for not accepting the appointment," she said.

She did not attend the upper house session on Wednesday, the first with the appointed members.

The opposition fears that the Shura Council upper house, which will hold legislative authority until a new parliament is elected in early 2013, will issue laws curbing freedoms.

Mursi signed the new constitution into law this week after two thirds of Egyptian voters approved it in a two-stage referendum this month which the opposition said was marred by widespread violations.

Propelled to power by his Muslim Brotherhood allies this year, Mursi says the constitution and a subsequent vote to elect a permanent lower house will help stop political unrest and allow him to focus on burning economic issues.

Henry was one of the 90 members handpicked by Mursi into the 270-seat council. She was not immediately available for comment.

Any further resignations would threaten the legitimacy of the Shura Council at a time when it is expected to move fast with difficult reforms key to helping Egypt's battered economy.

Two-thirds of the upper house were elected in a vote this year, with one third appointed by the president, some of whom are members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and other ultra-conservative Salafis.

Mursi and his Islamist allies have urged the opposition to engage in national unity talks to achieve much needed consensus to help end an economic crisis that has widened the budget deficit and sent the Egyptian pound to a eight-year low.

"We stress again that the nation should achieve internal reconciliation and forget its differences," the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohamed Badei, told Egyptians in his weekly message.

"Let's work seriously to end the reciprocal wars of attrition. We are in an urgent need to unify ranks and group together and focus our capabilities and assets to the general benefit."

The constitution has come under attack from Mursi's opponents after Christians and liberals quit an assembly tasked with drafting the constitution earlier, saying the document gave no guarantees of a civil state and threatened freedoms.

(Editing by Maria Golovnina and Angus MacSwan)

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Three Afghans dead in new blast at U.S. base in Afghan east

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed three people in an attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the same base that is believed to be used by the CIA and which a suicide bomber attacked three years ago killing seven CIA employees.

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the eastern town of Khost, saying they had sent a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives to the base.

"The target was those who serve Americans at that base," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Afghanistan's NATO-led force said the bomber did not get into the base nor breach its perimeter. Police said the three dead were Afghans who were outside the base, which is beside a military airport.

The al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, widely regarded as the most dangerous U.S. foe in Afghanistan, is active in Khost province, which is on the Pakistani border.

After more than a decade of war, Taliban insurgents are still able to strike strategic military targets, and launch high-profile attacks in the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere.

Three years ago, an al Qaeda-linked Jordanian double-agent killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer in a suicide bombing at the same base in Khost, known as Forward Operating Base Chapman.

It was the second deadliest attack in CIA history.

Afghan police official General Abdul Qasim Baqizoy, the Khost police chief, said no CIA agents were hurt on Wednesday.

Afghan authorities are scrambling to improve security across the country before the U.S. combat mission ends in 2014.

Besides pressure from the Taliban, U.S.-led NATO forces also face a rising number of so-called insider attacks, in which Afghan forces turn their weapons on Western troops they are supposed to be working with.

On Monday, an Afghan policewoman killed a U.S. police adviser at the Kabul police headquarters, raising troubling questions about the direction of the war.

It appeared to be the first time that a woman member of Afghanistan's security forces carried out such an attack.

On Tuesday, Afghan officials said the woman has an Iranian passport and moved to Afghanistan 10 years ago. There was no suggestion that Iran was involved in the attack on the American.

Officials suspect she may have been recruited by al Qaeda or the Taliban, and had intended to also kill Afghan police officials.

(Reporting by Elyas Wahdat; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Shelling in Syria's Raqqa kills 20, at least eight children

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Government shelling in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa killed about 20 people, at least 8 of them children, a video posted by activists on Wednesday showed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published a video showing rows of the blood-stained bodies laid out on blankets. The sound of crying relatives could be heard in the background.

The shelling hit the province's al-Qahtania village, but it was unclear when the attack happened.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Egypt's leader signs contentious constitution into law

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi signed into law a new constitution shaped by his Islamist allies, which he says will help end political turmoil and allow him to focus on fixing the fragile economy.

Anxiety about a deepening political and economic crisis has gripped Egypt in past weeks, with many people rushing to buy dollars and take out their savings from banks. The government has imposed new restrictions to reduce capital flight.

The new charter, which the secularist opposition says betrays Egypt's 2011 revolution by dangerously mixing religion and politics, has polarized the Arab world's most populous nation and prompted occasionally violent protest on the streets.

Results announced on Tuesday showed Egyptians had approved the text with about 64 percent of the vote, paving the way for a new parliamentary election in about two months.

The win in the referendum is the Islamists' third straight electoral victory since veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011, following parliamentary elections last year and the presidential vote that brought Mursi to power this year.

Mursi's government, which has accused opponents of damaging the economy by prolonging political upheaval, now faces the tough task of building a broad consensus as it prepares to impose unpopular austerity measures to prop up the economy.

The presidency said on Wednesday that Mursi had signed a decree enforcing the charter overnight after the official announcement of the result of the referendum approving the basic law, Egypt's first constitution since Mubarak's overthrow.

The opposition has condemned the new basic law as too Islamist, saying it could allow clerics to intervene in the lawmaking process and leave minority groups without proper legal protection. It also said the referendum was marred by widespread electoral violations.

Nevertheless, major opposition groups have not called for new protests, suggesting that weeks of civil unrest over the constitution may be subsiding now that it has passed.

Mursi, catapulted into power by his Islamist allies this year, believes adopting the text quickly and holding the vote for a permanent new parliament will help end a protracted period of turmoil and uncertainty that has wrecked the economy.

Mursi's government argues the constitution offers enough protection to all groups, and that many Egyptians are fed up with street protests that have prevented a return to normality and distracted the government from focusing on the economy.

The constitution gives Egypt's upper house of parliament, which is dominated by Islamists, full legislative powers until a vote for a new lower house is held. The chamber convened on Wednesday for the first time since the constitution's adoption.

CONCERNS

The government has begun a series of meetings with businessmen, trade unions, non-governmental organizations and other groups to persuade them of the need for tax increases and spending cuts to resolve the country's financial crisis.

Mursi has committed to such austerity measures to receive loans from the International Monetary Fund.

While stressing the importance of political stability to heal the economy, Mursi's government has sought to play down economic woes and appealed for unity in the face of hardship.

"The government calls on the people not to worry about the country's economy," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohamed Mahsoub told the upper house in a speech.

"We are not facing an economic problem but a political one and it is affecting the economic situation. We therefore urge all groups, opponents and brothers, to achieve wide reconciliation and consensus."

Mursi is due to address the upper house on Saturday in a speech likely to be dominated by economic policy.

Sharpening people's concerns, the authorities imposed currency controls on Tuesday to prevent capital flight. Leaving or entering Egypt with more than $10,000 cash is now banned.

Al-Mal newspaper quoted Planning Minister Ashraf al-Araby as saying the government would not implement a series of planned tax increases until it completes a dialogue with different parts of society.

Adding to the government's long list of worries, Communications Minister Hany Mahmoud has resigned citing his "inability to adapt to the government's working culture".

The United States, which provides $1.3 billion a year in military aid plus other support to Egypt and sees it as a pillar of security in the Middle East, called on Egyptian politicians to bridge divisions and on all sides to reject violence.

"President Mursi, as the democratically elected leader of Egypt, has a special responsibility to move forward in a way that recognizes the urgent need to bridge divisions," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Werr; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Japan's Abe taps allies for cabinet, eyes deflation

TOKYO (Reuters) - New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled a cabinet stacked with close allies on Wednesday, kicking off a second administration committed to battling deflation and coping with the challenge of a rising China.

Abe, 58, has promised aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan and big fiscal spending by the debt-laden government to slay deflation and weaken the yen to make Japanese exports more competitive.

The grandson of a former prime minister, Abe has staged a stunning comeback five years after abruptly resigning as premier in the wake of a one-year term troubled partly by scandals in his cabinet and public outrage over lost pension records.

"I want to learn from the experience of my previous administration, including the setbacks, and aim for a stable government," Abe told reporters before parliament's lower house voted him in as Japan's seventh prime minister in six years.

The vote was a formality after Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) surged back to power in this month's election, three years after a crushing defeat at the hands of the novice Democratic Party of Japan. Abe was to be confirmed by Emperor Akihito later in the day, another formality.

CLOSE ALLIES, PARTY RIVALS

Abe appointed a cabinet of close allies leavened by some LDP rivals to fend off the criticism of cronyism that dogged his first administration.

Former prime minister Taro Aso, 72, was named finance minister and also received the financial services portfolio.

Ex-trade and industry minister Akira Amari becomes minister for economic revival while policy veteran Toshimitsu Motegi takes over as trade minister. Motegi is also be tasked with formulating energy policy in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year.

Loyal Abe backer Yoshihide Suga was appointed chief cabinet secretary, a key post combining the job of top government spokesman with responsibility for coordinating among ministries.

Others who share Abe's agenda to revise the pacifist constitution and rewrite Japan's wartime history with a less apologetic tone were also given posts, including conservative lawmaker Hakubun Shimomura as education minister.

"These are really LDP right-wingers and close friends of Abe," said Sophia University professor Koichi Nakano. "It really doesn't look very fresh at all."

Fiscal hawk Sadakazu Tanigaki, whom Abe replaced as LDP leader in September, becomes justice minister while two rivals who ran unsuccessfully in that party race - Yoshimasa Hayashi and Nobuteru Ishihara - got the agriculture and environment/nuclear crisis portfolios respectively.

CENTRAL BANK THREATENED

The yen has weakened about 9.8 percent against the dollar since Abe was elected LDP leader in September. On Wednesday, it hit a 20-month low of 85.38 yen against the greenback on expectations of aggressive monetary policy easing.

Abe has threatened to revise a law guaranteeing the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) independence if it refuses to set a 2 percent inflation target.

BOJ minutes released on Wednesday showed the central bank was already pondering policy options in November, concerned about looming risks to the economy. The BOJ stood pat at its November rate review meeting but eased this month in response to intensifying pressure from Abe.

Abe also promised during the election campaign to take a tough stance in territorial rows with China and South Korea over separate chains of tiny islands, while placing priority on strengthening Japan's alliance with the United States.

Abe appointed two low-profile officials to the foreign and defense portfolios.

Itsunori Onodera, 52, who was senior vice foreign minister in Abe's first cabinet, becomes defense minister while Fumio Kishida, 55, a former state minister for issues related to Okinawa island - host to the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan - was appointed to the top diplomatic post.

Abe, who hails from a wealthy political family, made his first overseas visit to China to repair chilly ties when he took office in 2006, but has said his first trip this time will be to the United States.

He may, however, put contentious issues that could upset key trade partner China and fellow-U.S. ally South Korea on the backburner to concentrate on boosting the economy, now in its fourth recession since 2000, ahead of an election for parliament's upper house in July.

The LDP and its small ally, the New Komeito party, won a two-thirds majority in the 480-seat lower house in the December 16 election. That allows the lower house to enact bills rejected by the upper house, where the LDP-led block lacks a majority.

But the process is cumbersome, so the LDP is keen to win a majority in the upper house to end the parliamentary deadlock that has plagued successive governments since 2007.

"The LDP is still under the critical eyes of the public. We need to earn their trust by getting things done one by one," Abe told party lawmakers ahead of the lower house vote.

"First on the agenda is economic recovery, beating deflation and correcting a firm yen and getting the economy back on the growth path. If we don't pursue this target, an upper house election next year will be a tough one for us."

In a sign of the "twisted parliament" Abe confronts, he was voted in with a whopping 328 votes in the powerful 480-seat lower house, but failed to win a first round vote in the upper chamber. He defeated new opposition Democratic Party chief Banri Kaieda in a run-off.

($1 = 84.7950 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Leika Kihara, Kiyoshi Takenaka, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Chris Meyers; Editing by Dean Yates)

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Russian parliament approves ban on American adoptions

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children went to President Vladimir Putin for his signature on Wednesday after winning final approval from parliament in retaliation for a U.S. law meant to punish Russian human rights abusers.

Putin has strongly hinted he will sign the bill, which also outlaws some U.S.-funded non-governmental groups and hits back at U.S. sanctions by imposing visa bans and asset freezes on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians.

The Federation Council, Russia's upper parliament house, voted unanimously to approve the bill, which has clouded U.S.-Russian relations and outraged liberals who say lawmakers are playing a political game with the lives of children.

The bill has drawn unusual criticism from some government officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Olga Golodets, a deputy prime minister who said it may violate an international convention on children's rights.

Putin has described it as an emotional but appropriate response to U.S. legislation he said was poisoning relations.

U.S. President Barack Obama this month signed off on the Magnitsky Act, which imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in custody of an anti-graft lawyer in 2009.

The ban on American adoptions takes Russia's response a step further, playing into deep sensitivity among Russians - and the government in particular - over adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

The bill is named for Dima Yakovlev - a Russian-born toddler who died of heat stroke when his adoptive American father forgot him in a car.

MORAL GROUNDS

"It is immoral to send our children abroad to any country," Federation Council deputy Valery Shtyrov said in a one-sided debate peppered with hawkish rhetoric before the 143-0 vote.

Child rights advocates say the law, due to take effect on January 1 if signed by Putin, will deprive children of a way out of Russia's overcrowded orphanage system.

"This is the most vile law passed since Putin came to power," opposition activist Boris Nemtsov said, adding that he was certain the president would sign it. "Putin is taking children hostage, like a terrorist".

Police said they had arrested seven people protesting against the law on Wednesday outside the Federation Council.

Nevertheless, lawmaker Gennady Makin said the Magnitsky Act demanded a tough response.

"He who comes to Russia with a sword dies by that sword," he said.

The dispute adds to tension in U.S.-Russia ties already strained over issues ranging from Syria to the Kremlin's treatment of opponents and restrictions imposed on civil society groups since Putin, in power since 2000, began a new six-year term in May.

The Russian bill would outlaw U.S.-funded "non-profit organizations that engage in political activity", which Putin accuses of trying to influence Russian politics.

Russia ejected the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which funds Russian non-governmental groups, in October, and Putin has signed a law forcing many foreign-funded organizations to register as "foreign agents" - a term that evokes the Cold War.

Americans affected by the visa ban could include those involved in the prosecution of Viktor Bout, a Russian arms trader serving a 25-year prison term in the United States after an arrest and trial condemned as unfair by Moscow.

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Graff)

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Israel says has no proof poison gas used in Syria

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel voiced doubt on Tuesday about the accuracy of Syrian activists' reports that chemical weapons had been used against rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

"We have seen reports from the opposition. It is not the first time. The opposition has an interest in drawing in international military intervention," Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Army Radio.

"As things stand now, we do not have any confirmation or proof that (chemical weapons) have already been used, but we are definitely following events with concern," he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gathered activist accounts on Sunday of what they said was a poison gas attack in the city of Homs. The reports are difficult to verify, as the government restricts media access in Syria.

The Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across Syria, said those accounts spoke of six rebel fighters who died after inhaling smoke on the front line of Homs's urban battleground. It said it could not confirm that poison gas had been used and called for an investigation.

Syria has said it would never use chemical weapons against its citizens.

Asked about images purported to show patients being treated for possible gas poisoning, Yaalon said: "I'm not sure that what we're seeing in the photos is the result of the use of chemical weapons.

"It could be other things," he said, without elaborating.

On Sunday, senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad said Syria's chemical weapons were still secure despite the fact that Assad had lost control of parts of the country.

As Syria's southern neighbor, Israel has been concerned about chemical weapons falling into the hands of Islamist militants or Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, cautioning it could intervene to stop such developments.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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