Syria says ready to talk with armed opposition

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syria is ready for talks with its armed opponents, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday, in the clearest offer yet of negotiations with rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

But Moualem said at the same time Syria would pursue its fight "against terrorism", alluding to the conflict with rebels in which the United Nations says 70,000 people have been killed.

Assad and his foes are locked in a bloody stalemate after nearly two years of combat, destruction and civilian suffering.

"We are ready for dialogue with everyone who wants it...Even with those who have weapons in their hands. Because we believe that reforms will not come through bloodshed but only through dialogue," Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted Moualem as saying.

He was speaking in Moscow at a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Russia is a staunch ally of Assad.

Moaz Alkhatib, head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, said in Cairo he had not had held any contacts about talks with Damascus, but had postponed trips to Russia and the United States "until we see how things develop".

Syria's government and the political opposition have both suggested in recent weeks they are prepared for some contacts - softening their previous outright rejection of talks to resolve a conflict which has driven nearly a million Syrians out of the country and left millions more homeless and hungry.

But the opposition has said any political solution must be based on the removal of Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since 1970. Rebel fighters, who do not answer to Alkhatib, are even more insistent that Assad must go before any talks start.

Brigadier Selim Idris, head of a rebel military command, demanded a complete ceasefire, the president's departure and the trial of his security and military chiefs as preconditions for negotiations. "We will not go (into talks) unless these demands are realized," he told Al Arabiya Television.

Damascus has rejected any preconditions for talks aimed at ending the violence, which started as a peaceful pro-democracy uprising in March 2011 inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere.

"SYRIAN COLLAPSE"

The two sides also differ on the location for any talks, with the opposition saying they should be abroad or in rebel-held parts of Syria. Assad's government says any serious dialogue must be held on Syrian territory under its control.

Adding to the difficulty of any negotiated settlement is the lack of influence that Syria's political opposition - mostly operating outside the country - has over rebels inside.

"We are following the development of events ... with alarm," Lavrov said. "In our evaluation the situation is at a kind of crossroads. There are those who have set a course for further bloodshed and an escalation of conflict. This is fraught with the risk of the collapse of the Syrian state and society.

"But there are also reasonable forces that increasingly acutely understand the need for the swiftest possible start of talks ... In these conditions the need for the Syrian leadership to continue to consistently advocate the start of dialogue, and not allow provocations to prevail, is strongly increasing."

Lavrov's warning that the Syrian state could founder appeared aimed to show that Russia is pressing Assad's government to seek a negotiated solution while continuing to lay much of the blame for the persistent violence on his opponents.

Russia has distanced itself from Assad and has stepped up its calls for dialogue as his prospects of retaining power have decreased, but insists that his exit must not be a precondition.

Itar-Tass did not report any other comments by Syria's Moualem on the chances for talks or on any conditions attached.

"What's happening in Syria is a war against terrorism," the agency quoted him as saying. "We will strongly adhere to a peaceful course and continue to fight against terrorism."

The Syrian National Coalition said on Friday it was willing to negotiate a peace deal, but insisted Assad could not be party to it - a demand that the president looks sure to reject.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Assad had told him he intended to remain president until his term ends in 2014 and would then run for re-election.

The political chasm between the government and rebels and a lack of opposition influence over rebel fighters has allowed fighting to rage on for 23 months in Syria, while international diplomatic deadlock has prevented effective intervention.

Moualem's comments echoed remarks last week by Minister for National Reconciliation Ali Haidar, who said he was ready to meet the armed opposition. But Haidar drew a distinction between what said might be "preparatory talks" and formal negotiations.

Assad, announcing plans last month for a national dialogue to address the crisis, said that there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".

Moualem made his remarks a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry began a nine-nation tour of European and Arab nations in which the Syria conflict will be a main focus.

Kerry plans to meet Lavrov in Berlin on Tuesday and Syrian opposition leaders at a conference in Rome on Thursday, although it is unclear whether all will attend amid internal rows over the value of such international meetings while violence goes on.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh in Cairo; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Britain's top Catholic cleric resigns, won't elect new pope

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric resigned on Monday following allegations he behaved in an inappropriate way with priests, and said he would not take part in the election of Pope Benedict's replacement.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien said he had tendered his resignation some months ago, ahead of his 75th birthday in March and because he was suffering from "indifferent health".

The Vatican said the pope, who steps down on Thursday, had accepted O'Brien's resignation as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh.

O'Brien, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has been reported to the Vatican over allegations of inappropriate behavior stretching back 30 years, according to Britain's Observer newspaper.

The cardinal, who last week advocated allowing Catholic priests to marry as many found it difficult to cope with celibacy, rejected the allegations and was seeking legal advice, his spokesman said.1

"Looking back over my years of ministry: For any good I have been able to do, I thank God. For any failures, I apologize to all whom I have offended," O'Brien said in a statement, which made no reference to the recent allegations.

He said he would not attend the election next month of a new pope, saying: "I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me - but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor."

The Observer, which gave little detail on the claims, said three priests and a former priest, from a Scottish diocese, had complained over incidents dating back to 1980.

One said the cardinal formed an "inappropriate relationship" with him while another complained of unwanted behavior by O'Brien after a late-night drinking session.

Last year, O'Brien's comments labeling gay marriage a "grotesque subversion" landed him with a "Bigot of the Year" award from British gay rights group Stonewall.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; editing by Maria Golovnina and Jon Boyle)

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Powers to offer Iran sanctions relief at nuclear talks: U.S. official

ALMATY (Reuters) - Major powers will offer Iran some sanctions relief during talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, this week if Tehran agrees to curb its nuclear program, a U.S. official said on Monday.

However, the Islamic Republic could face more economic pain if the standoff remains unresolved, the official said ahead of the February 26-27 meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We think ... there will be some additional sanctions relief (in the powers' updated proposal to Iran)," the official said, without giving details.

Western diplomats have told Reuters that the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France will offer to ease sanctions on trade in gold and precious metals if Iran closes its Fordow underground uranium enrichment plant.

Iranian officials have indicated, however, that this will not be enough. Iran denies Western it is seeking to develop the capability to make nuclear bombs, saying its program is entirely peaceful.

The U.S. official said the powers hoped that the Almaty meeting would lead to follow-up talks soon. "We are ready to step up the pace of our meetings and our discussions," the official said, adding the United States would also be prepared to hold bilateral talks with Tehran if it was serious about it.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Justyna Pawlak; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Israel fears new Palestinian uprising could erupt

SE'EER, West Bank (Reuters) - Masked Palestinian gunmen fired in the air on Monday as thousands marched at the West Bank funeral of a prisoner whose death in an Israeli jail has raised fears in Israel of a new uprising.

Arafat Jaradat's death on Saturday and a hunger strike by four other Palestinian inmates have raised tension in the occupied territory after repeated clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli soldiers in recent days.

Israeli troops, on high alert, took up positions outside Jaradat's home village of Se'eer, in likely earshot of the bursts of automatic fire from the half-dozen masked Palestinians in full battle dress.

"We sacrifice our souls and blood for you, our martyr!" mourners chanted.

The sounds and fury were reminiscent of the seven-year Intifada, or uprising, that started in 2000 after Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed.

Israeli Homeland Minister Avi Dichter cautioned that another uprising could begin if confrontations with Palestinian protesters turned deadly.

The Israeli military said dozens of Palestinians had thrown stones at soldiers in various parts of the West Bank on Monday. Troops responded with tear gas and stun grenades, and no serious injuries were reported.

"The previous two Intifadas ... came about as a result of a high number of dead (during protests)," Dichter told Israel Radio. "Fatalities are almost a proven recipe for a sharper escalation."

THROWING STONES

Jaradat, 30, was arrested a week ago for throwing stones at Israeli cars in the West Bank.

Palestinian officials said he had died after being tortured in prison. But Israel said an autopsy carried out in the presence of a Palestinian coroner was inconclusive and that injuries such as broken ribs could have been caused by efforts to revive Jaradat.

Palestinian frustration has been fuelled by Israel's settlement expansion in the West Bank, a peace process in limbo since 2010 and a persisting rift between President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority and the Islamists of Hamas who run Gaza.

"We have no choice but to continue the popular resistance and escalate it in the face of the occupation, whether it be the army or the settlers," Mahmoud Aloul, a senior member of Abbas's Fatah movement, told Reuters.

In Se'eer, local merchant Abu Issa, 45, said he was unsure whether what he described as Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation would lead to an uprising.

"One day the Palestinian people will take a stand, but I don't know if that day is today," he said.

Abbas has said he will not allow a third armed Intifada.

"The Israelis want chaos ... We will not allow them to drag us into it and to mess with the lives of our children and our youth," Abbas told reporters in his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"NOTHING GAINED"

Dichter said Israel had to tread carefully in dealing with protests, accusing the Palestinians of trying to portray themselves as victims before U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to the region next month.

"I don't think the Palestinian Authority will gain from an intifada, just as it didn't achieve anything from the first or second intifadas," he said.

"But I would say that, after conducting themselves with poor and warped thinking over the years, they don't always recognize what's in their best interests."

Israel demanded on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority stem the protests, many of which have taken place in areas outside the Authority's jurisdiction.

"They (the Palestinians) are trying to drag us to a situation where there will be dead children," Dichter said.

Palestinians have rallied to the cause of the four hunger-strikers, two of whom are being held without trial on suspicion of anti-Israeli activity.

Some 4,700 Palestinians are in Israeli jails and Palestinians see them as heroes in a struggle for statehood.

The death of any of the hunger-strikers, one of whom has been refusing food, off and on, for more than 200 days, would likely lead to more widespread violence.

The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 and ended in 1993, when the Oslo interim peace accords were signed.

The second Intifada broke out in 2000 after the failure of talks on a final peace agreement. Over the following seven years, more than 1,000 Israelis died, half of them in suicide attacks mostly against civilians. More than 4,500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Insight: Spiral of Karachi killings widens Pakistan's sectarian divide

KARACHI (Reuters) - When Aurangzeb Farooqi survived an attempt on his life that left six of his bodyguards dead and a six-inch bullet wound in his thigh, the Pakistani cleric lost little time in turning the narrow escape to his advantage.

Recovering in hospital after the ambush on his convoy in Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, the radical Sunni Muslim ideologue was composed enough to exhort his followers to close ranks against the city's Shi'ites.

"Enemies should listen to this: my task now is Sunni awakening," Farooqi said in remarks captured on video shortly after a dozen gunmen opened fire on his double-cabin pick-up truck on December 25.

"I will make Sunnis so powerful against Shi'ites that no Sunni will even want to shake hands with a Shi'ite," he said, propped up in bed on emergency-room pillows. "They will die their own deaths, we won't have to kill them."

Such is the kind of speech that chills members of Pakistan's Shi'ite minority, braced for a new chapter of persecution following a series of bombings that have killed almost 200 people in the city of Quetta since the beginning of the year.

While the Quetta carnage grabbed world attention, a Reuters inquiry into a lesser known spate of murders in Karachi, a much bigger conurbation, suggests the violence is taking on a volatile new dimension as a small number of Shi'ites fight back.

Pakistan's Western allies have traditionally been fixated on the challenge posed to the brittle, nuclear-armed state by Taliban militants battling the army in the bleakly spectacular highlands on the Afghan frontier.

But a cycle of tit-for-tat killings on the streets of Karachi points to a new type of threat: a campaign by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and allied Pakistani anti-Shi'ite groups to rip open sectarian fault-lines in the city of 18 million people.

Police suspect LeJ, which claimed responsibility for the Quetta blasts, and its sympathizers may also be the driving force behind the murder of more than 80 Shi'ites in Karachi in the past six months, including doctors, bankers and teachers.

In turn, a number of hardline Sunni clerics who share Farooqi's suspicion of the Shi'ite sect have been killed in drive-by shootings or barely survived apparent revenge attacks. Dozens of Farooqi's followers have also been shot dead.

Discerning the motives for any one killing is murky work in Karachi, where multiple armed factions are locked in a perpetual all-against-all turf war, but detectives suspect an emerging Shi'ite group known as the Mehdi Force is behind some of the attacks on Farooqi's men.

While beleaguered secularists and their Western friends hope Pakistan will mature into a more confident democracy at general elections due in May, the spiral of killings in Karachi, a microcosm of the country's diversity, suggests the polarizing forces of intolerance are gaining ground.

"The divide is getting much bigger between Shia and Sunni. You have to pick sides now," said Sundus Rasheed, who works at a radio station in Karachi. "I've never experienced this much hatred in Pakistan."

Once the proud wearer of a silver Shi'ite amulet her mother gave her to hang around her neck, Rasheed now tucks away the charm, fearing it might serve not as protection, but mark her as a target.

"INFIDELS"

Fully recovered from the assassination attempt, Farooqi can be found in the cramped upstairs office of an Islamic seminary tucked in a side-street in Karachi's gritty Landhi neighborhood, an industrial zone in the east of the city.

On a rooftop shielded by a corrugated iron canopy, dozens of boys wearing skull caps sit cross-legged on prayer mats, imbibing a strict version of the Deobandi school of Sunni Islam that inspires both Farooqi and the foot-soldiers of LeJ.

"We say Shias are infidels. We say this on the basis of reason and arguments," Farooqi, a wiry, intense man with a wispy beard and cascade of shoulder-length curls, told Reuters. "I want to be called to the Supreme Court so that I can prove using their own books that they are not Muslims."

Farooqi, who cradled bejeweled prayer beads as he spoke, is the Karachi head of a Deobandi organization called Ahle Sunnat wal Jama'at. That is the new name for Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a forerunner banned in 2002 in a wider crackdown on militancy by Pakistan's then army ruler, General Pervez Musharraf.

Farooqi says he opposes violence and denies any link to LeJ, but security officials believe his supporters are broadly aligned with the heavily armed group, whose leaders deem murdering Shi'ites an act of piety.

In the past year, LeJ has prosecuted its campaign with renewed gusto, emboldened by the release of Malik Ishaq, one of its founders, who was freed after spending 14 years in jail in July, 2011. Often pictured wearing a celebratory garland of pink flowers, Ishaq has since appeared at gatherings of supporters in Karachi and other cities.

In diverse corners of Pakistan, LeJ's cadres have bombed targets from mosques to snooker halls; yanked passengers off buses and shot them, and posted a video of themselves beheading a pair of trussed-up captives with a knife.

Nobody knows exactly how many Shi'ites there are in Pakistan -- estimates ranging from four to 20 percent of the population of 180 million underscore the uncertainty. What is clear is that they are dying faster than ever. At least 400 were killed last year, many from the ethnic Hazara minority in Quetta, according to Human Rights Watch, and some say the figure is far higher.

Pakistani officials suspect regional powers are stoking the fire, with donors in Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-dominated Gulf countries funding LeJ, while Shi'ite organizations turn to Iran.

Whatever factors are driving the violence, the state's ambivalent response has raised questions over the degree of tolerance for LeJ by elements in the security establishment, which has a long history of nurturing Deobandi proxies.

Under pressure in the wake of the Quetta bombings, police arrested Ishaq at his home in the eastern Punjab province on Friday under a colonial-era public order law.

But in Karachi, Farooqi and his thousands of followers project a new aura of confidence. Crowds of angry men chant "Shia infidel! Shia infidel" at rallies and burn effigies while clerics pour scorn on the sect from mosque loudspeakers after Friday prayers. A rash of graffiti hails Farooqi as a savior.

Over glasses of milky tea, he explained that his goal was to convince the government to declare Shi'ites non-Muslims, as it did to the Ahmadiyya sect in 1974, as a first step towards ostracizing the community and banning a number of their books.

"When someone is socially boycotted, he becomes disappointed and isolated. He realizes that his beliefs are not right, that people hate him," Farooqi said. "What I'm saying is that killing them is not the solution. Let's talk, let's debate and convince people that they are wrong."

CODENAME "SHAHEED"

Not far from Farooqi's seminary, in the winding lanes of the rough-and-tumble Malir quarter, Shi'ite leaders are kindling an awakening of their own.

A gleaming metallic chandelier dangles from the mirrored archway of a half-completed mosque rising near the modest offices of Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslemeen - known as MWM - a vocal Shi'ite party that has emerged to challenge Farooqi's ascent.

In an upstairs room, Ejaz Hussain Bahashti, an MWM leader clad in a white turban and black cloak, exhorts a gaggle of women activists to persuade their neighbors to join the cause.

Seated beneath a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shi'ite cleric who led the 1979 Iranian revolution, Bahashti said his organization would not succumb to what he sees as a plan by LeJ to provoke sectarian conflict.

"In our sect, if we are being killed we are not supposed to carry out reprisal attacks," he told Reuters. "If we decided to take up arms, then no part of the country would be spared from terrorism - but it's forbidden."

The MWM played a big role in sit-ins that paralyzed parts of Karachi and dozens of other towns to protest against the Quetta bombings - the biggest Shi'ite demonstrations in years. But police suspect that some in the sect have chosen a less peaceful path.

Detectives believe the small Shi'ite Mehdi Force group, comprised of about 20 active members in Karachi, is behind several of the attacks on Deobandi clerics and their followers.

The underground network is led by a hardened militant codenamed "Shaheed", or martyr, who recruits eager but unseasoned middle-class volunteers who compensate for their lack of numbers by stalking high-profile targets.

"They don't have a background in terrorism, but after the Shia killings started they joined the group and they tried to settle the score," said Superintendent of Police Raja Umar Khattab. "They kill clerics."

In November, suspected Mehdi Force gunmen opened fire at a tea shop near the Ahsan-ul-Uloom seminary, where Farooqi has a following, killing six students. A scholar from the madrasa was shot dead the next month, another student killed in January.

"It was definitely a reaction, Shias have never gone on the offensive on their own," said Deputy Inspector-General Shahid Hayat.

According to the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, a Karachi residents' group, some 68 members of Farooqi's Ahle Sunnat wal Jama'at and 85 Shi'ites were killed in the city from early September to February 19.

Police caution that it can be difficult to discern who is killing who in a vast metropolis where an array of political factions and gangs are vying for influence. A suspect has yet to be named, for example, in the slaying of two Deobandi clerics and a student in January whose killer was caught on CCTV firing at point blank range then fleeing on a motorbike.

Some in Karachi question whether well-connected Shi'ites within the city's dominant political party, the Muttahida Quami Movement, which commands a formidable force of gunmen, may have had a hand in some of the more sophisticated attacks, or whether rival Sunni factions may also be involved.

Despite the growing body count, Karachi can still draw on a store of tolerance. Some Sunnis made a point of attending the Shi'ite protests - a reminder that Farooqi's adherents are themselves a minority. Yet as Karachi's murder rate sets new records, the dynamics that have kept the city's conflicts within limits are being tested.

In the headquarters of an ambulance service founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi, once nominated for a Nobel Prize for devoting his life to Karachi's poor, controllers are busier than ever dispatching crews to ferry shooting victims to the morgue.

"The best religion of all is humanity," said Edhi, who is in his 80s, surveying the chaotic parade of street life from a chair on the pavement outside. "If religion doesn't have humanity, then it is useless."

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

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African leaders sign deal to end eastern Congo conflict

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - A U.N .-mediated peace deal aimed at ending two decades of conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo was signed on Sunday by leaders of Africa's Great Lakes region in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

African leaders failed to sign the deal last month after a disagreement over who would command a new regional force that will be deployed in eastern Congo and take on armed groups operating in the region.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's army is fighting the M23 rebels, who have hived off a fiefdom in eastern Congo's North Kivu province in a conflict has dragged Congo's eastern region back into war and displaced an estimated half a million people.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and leaders from Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Republic and South Sudan were present at the signing of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes.

Rwanda and Uganda had been accused by U.N. experts of supporting the rebels, an accusation they denied.

"It is my hope that the framework will lead to an era of peace and stability for the peoples of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the region," Ban said.

Congo's government and the rebels are holding talks in Uganda aimed reaching an agreement on a range of economic, political and security issues dividing the two sides, including amnesty for "war and insurgency acts", the release of political prisoners and reparation of damages due to the war.

"We ... commit ourselves to respect our obligations of this agreement we signed today, and we wish that all the signatories do the same," Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila said.

The rebels, who launched their offensive after accusing Kabila of reneging on the terms of a March 2009 peace agreement, have broadened their goals to include the removal of Kabila and "liberation" of the entire Congo.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by George Obulutsa)

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U.S. condemns Scud attack in Syria, invites opposition for talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States condemned a Syrian army Scud missile attack that killed dozens of people on Friday in the city of Aleppo, and invited the Syrian opposition for talks on finding a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

A State Department statement said the attack on a district of Aleppo and other assaults such as strikes on city blocks and a field hospital were "the latest demonstrations of the Syrian regime's ruthlessness and its lack of compassion for the Syrian people it claims to represent."

The statement, released on Saturday, could help placate the main Syrian opposition grouping, which turned down invitations to visit Washington and Moscow to protest what it described as international silence over the destruction of the historic city of Aleppo by government missile strikes.

Almost two years since the start of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, rebels have wrested large swathes of Syria from the control of Assad's forces but the areas remain the target of army artillery, air strikes and, increasingly, missiles.

The decision by the Syrian National Coalition to spurn the invitations and to suspend participation in the Friends of Syria conference of international powers has put peace initiatives on ice.

In the State Department statement, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington hoped to meet soon with the leadership of the opposition umbrella group "to discuss how the United States and other friends of the Syrian people can do more to help the Syrian people achieve the political transition that they demand and that they deserve."

Invitations from Washington and Moscow had been extended to opposition coalition leader Mouz Alkhatib after he met the Russian and U.S. foreign ministers in Munich earlier this month.

Alkhatib has tried to open channels to Russia and Iran, Assad's only remaining foreign backers, to put pressure on the Syrian strongman to leave power.

Alkhatib, a cleric from Damascus who has said he is morally obliged to try to seek an exit for Assad without more bloodshed, has been criticized by others in the SNC for acting alone.

The rocket attacks on an eastern districts of Aleppo, Syria's industrial and commercial hub, killed at least 29 people on Friday and trapped a family of 10 in the ruins of their home, opposition activists in the city said.

On Tuesday, activists said at least 20 people were killed when a large missile hit the rebel-held district of Jabal Badro, also in the east of the contested city.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Bulgarian protests for cheaper energy intensify

SOFIA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Bulgaria on Sunday, demanding an end to high utility bills and new voting rules after the government was toppled last week.

Public anger with power monopolies in the European Union's poorest member forced right-of-center Prime Minister Boiko Borisov's cabinet to resign and has put the country on track for an early election by May.

Although Borisov's government managed to maintain fiscal stability since taking power in 2009, belt-tightening has held back growth and driven up unemployment.

His departure has failed to calm voters fed up with low living standards and rampant graft, and his GERB party is now running neck-and-neck with the opposition Socialists ahead of the new election.

The last straw for many was a jump in winter electricity bills that at times exceeded incomes in a country where average salaries are just 400 euros ($530) a month and pensions are less than half that amount.

Much of the anger has been directed at power companies including Czech CEZ and Energo-Pro and Austria's EVN, which bought exclusive rights to distribute energy in specific regions from Bulgaria in 2004.

Waving Bulgarian flags and slogans reading "Fighting for decent life" and "Down with monopolies" over 10,000 Bulgarians marched through downtown Sofia.

"For years and years the politicians failed to impose strict controls over monopolies. This should stop," said 54-year-old Irena Mitova, a shop owner in Sofia.

POWER BILLS

Demonstrations also took place in around 40 other cities, with some 15,000 people marching in Bulgaria's second and third largest cities Plovdiv and Varna.

Separate, smaller protests were held against an inefficient education system that critics say does not prepare students for the labor market and against high interest charges from retail banks criticized for hurting small businesses.

President Rosen Plevneliev, who will probably appoint a caretaker government and dissolve parliament next week to pave the way for the early election, met protesters and ensured them their voices would be heard.

Protesters' demands ranged from imposing a moratorium on paying electricity bills for December and January until audits are carried out to sweeping changes in the constitution to allow the direct vote for deputies, rather than using party lists.

Some of the protesters demanded parliament continue with its work to adopt laws to ensure strict controls over the energy monopolies. Many want them to be renationalized and say politicians sold firms since the fall of communism in 1989 in a way that hurt public interest and kept living standards low.

Borisov had promised an 8 percent cut in electricity bills as of March - reversing much of a 13 percent rise his government approved last year - and has said the energy regulator would begin the process to revoke CEZ's license.

The regulator said a possible price decrease could be introduced as of April at the earliest and suggested there was room for compromise with CEZ.

(Editing by Michael Winfrey and Alison Williams)

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Frustrated Italians vote in crucial election for euro zone

ROME (Reuters) - Italians voted on Sunday in one of the most closely watched and unpredictable elections in years, with pent-up fury over a discredited elite adding to concern it may not produce a government strong enough to lead Italy out of an economic slump.

The election, which concludes on Monday afternoon, is being followed closely by investors; their memories are still fresh of the potentially catastrophic debt crisis that saw Mario Monti, an economics professor and former bureaucrat, summoned to serve as prime minister in place of Silvio Berlusconi 15 months ago.

A weak Italian government could, many fear, prompt a new dip in confidence in the European Union's single currency.

Opinion polls give the center-left a narrow lead but the result has been thrown completely open by the prospect of a huge protest vote against the painful austerity measures imposed by Monti's government and deep anger over a never-ending series of corruption scandals. Berlusconi's centre-right has also revived.

"I'm not confident that the government that emerges from the election will be able to solve any of our problems," said Attilio Bianchetti, a 55-year-old builder in Milan, who voted for the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic and blogger Beppe Grillo.

The 64-year-old Grillo, heavily backed by a frustrated generation of young Italians hit by record unemployment, has been one of the biggest features of the last stage of the campaign, packing rallies in town squares up and down Italy.

"He's the only real new element in a political landscape where we've been seeing the same faces for too long," said Vincenzo Cannizzaro, 48, in the Sicialian capital Palermo.

Italians started voting at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT). Polling booths will remain open until 10 p.m. on Sunday and open again between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Monday. Exit polls will come out soon after voting ends and official results are expected by early Tuesday.

Snow in northern regions is expected to last into Monday and could discourage some of the 47 million people eligible to vote in Italy to head out to polling stations, though the Interior Ministry has said it is fully prepared for bad weather.

Monti and his wife cast their votes at a polling booth in a Milan school on Sunday morning and centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader opinion polls suggest will have to form a new government, voted in his home town of Piacenza.

A small group of women's rights demonstrators greeted former prime minister Berlusconi when he voted in Milan. They bared their breasts in protest at the conservative leader, who is on trial at present for having sex with an underage prostitute.

Whichever government emerges from the election will have to tackle reforms needed to address problems that have given Italy one of the most sluggish economies in the developed world for the past two decades.

But the widespread despair over the state of the country, where a series of corruption scandals has highlighted the stark divide between a privileged political elite and millions of ordinary Italians, has left deep scars.

"It's our fault, Italian citizens. It's our closed mentality. We're just not Europeans," said Luciana Li Mandri, a 37-year-old public servant in Palermo.

"We're all about getting favors when we study, getting a protected job when we work. That's the way we are and we can only be represented by people like that as well," she said.

FRUSTRATION

Final polls published two weeks ago showed center-left leader Bersani with a 5-point lead, but analysts disagree about whether he will be able to form a stable majority that can make the economic reforms they believe Italy needs.

While the center left is still expected to gain control of the lower house, thanks to rules that guarantee a strong majority to whichever party wins the most votes nationally, a much closer battle will be fought for the Senate, which any government also needs to control to be able to pass laws.

The euro zone's third-largest economy is stuck in deep recession, struggling under a public debt burden second only to Greece in the 17-member currency bloc and with a public weary of more than a year of austerity policies.

Bersani is now thought to be just a few points ahead of media magnate Berlusconi, the four-times prime minister who has promised tax refunds and staged a media blitz in an attempt to win back voters.

Think-tank consultant Mario, 60, who was on his way to vote in Bologna, said Bersani's Democratic Party was the only serious grouping that could help solve the country's economic woes.

"They're not perfect," he said. "But they've got the organization and the union backing that will help them push through the structural reforms."

A strong fightback by Berlusconi, who has promised to repay a widely hated housing tax, the IMU, imposed by Monti last year, saw his support climb during a campaign that relentlessly attacked the "German-centric" austerity policies of the former European Union commissioner.

"I won't vote for Monti, and I don't think a lot of people will. He made a huge blunder with IMU," said 35-year-old hairdresser Marco Morando, preparing to vote in Milan.

But the populist frustration Berlusconi's campaign tapped into has also benefitted Grillo and many pollsters said his 5-Star Movement, made up of political novices, was challenging the center-right for the position as second political force.

"I'm very worried. There seems to be no way out from a political point of view, or from being able to govern," said Calogero Giallanza, a 45-year-old musician in Rome, who voted for Bersani's Democrats.

"There's bound to be a mess in the Senate because, as far as I can see, the 5-Star Movement is unstoppable."

(Additional reporting by Cristiano Corvino, Lisa Jucca, Jennifer Clark, Matthias Baehr and Sara Rossi in Milan, Stephen Jewkes in Bologna, Wladimir Pantaleone in Palermo, Stefano Bernabei and Massimiliano Di Giorgio in Rome; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Alastair Macdonald)

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Abe vows to revive Japanese economy, sees no escalation with China

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Americans on Friday "I am back and so is Japan" and vowed to get the world's third biggest economy growing again and to do more to bolster security and the rule of law in an Asia roiled by territorial disputes.

Abe had firm words for China in a policy speech to a top Washington think-tank, but also tempered his remarks by saying he had no desire to escalate a row over islets in the East China Sea that Tokyo controls and Beijing claims.

"No nation should make any miscalculation about firmness of our resolve. No one should ever doubt the robustness of the Japan-U.S. alliance," he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"At the same time, I have absolutely no intention to climb up the escalation ladder," Abe said in a speech in English.

After meeting U.S. President Barack Obama on his first trip to Washington since taking office in December in a rare comeback to Japan's top job, he said he told Obama that Tokyo would handle the islands issue "in a calm manner."

"We will continue to do so and we have always done so," he said through a translator, while sitting next to Obama in the White House Oval Office.

Tension surged in 2012, raising fears of an unintended military incident near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Washington says the islets fall under a U.S.-Japan security pact, but it is eager to avoid a clash in the region.

Abe said he and Obama "agreed that we have to work together to maintain the freedom of the seas and also that we would have to create a region which is governed based not on force but based on an international law."

Abe, whose troubled first term ended after just one year when he abruptly quit in 2007, has vowed to revive Japan's economy with a mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, big spending, and structural reform. The hawkish leader is also boosting Japan's defense spending for the first time in 11 years.

"Japan is not, and will never be, a tier-two country," Abe said in his speech. "So today ... I make a pledge. I will bring back a strong Japan, strong enough to do even more good for the betterment of the world."

'ABENOMICS' TO BOOST TRADE

The Japanese leader stressed that his "Abenomics" recipe would be good for the United States, China and other trading partners.

"Soon, Japan will export more, but it will import more as well," Abe said in the speech. "The U.S. will be the first to benefit, followed by China, India, Indonesia and so on."

Abe said Obama welcomed his economic policy, while Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the two leaders did not discuss currencies, in a sign that the U.S. does not oppose "Abenomics" despite concern that Japan is weakening its currency to export its way out of recession.

The United States and Japan agreed language during Abe's visit that could set the stage for Tokyo to join negotiations soon on a U.S.-led regional free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In a carefully worded statement following the meeting between Obama and Abe, the two countries reaffirmed that "all goods would be subject to negotiations if Japan joins the talks with the United States and 10 other countries.

At the same time, the statement envisions a possible outcome where the United States could maintain tariffs on Japanese automobiles and Japan could still protect its rice sector.

"Recognizing that both countries have bilateral trade sensitivities, such as certain agricultural products for Japan and certain manufactured products for the United States, the two governments confirm that, as the final outcome will be determined during the negotiations, it is not required to make a prior commitment to unilaterally eliminate all tariffs upon joining the TPP negotiations," the statement said.

Abe repeated that Japan would not provide any aid for North Korea unless it abandoned its nuclear and missile programs and released Japanese citizens abducted decades ago to help train spies.

Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Five have been sent home, but Japan wants better information about eight who Pyongyang says are dead and others Tokyo believes were also kidnapped.

Abe also said he hoped to have a meeting with new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who takes over as president next month, and would dispatch Finance Minister Taro Aso to attend the inauguration of incoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye next week.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Doug Palmer; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Paul Simao)

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