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South Sudan's vice president will visit Khartoum next week, Sudanese state media said on Thursday, marking the highest-level talks since Sudan threatened to cut off cross-border oil flows almost two weeks ago. _0"> Bilateral ties hit a new low this month when Sudan said it would halt oil exports that pass through Sudan for shipment abroad within 60 days unless Juba gave up support for rebels operating across the shared border. Juba denies the claims.   Since then, the African Union has been trying to defuse the situation, hoping a relative peace will hold between the neighbors, which split in 2011. The two, which fought decades of civil wars that ended in 2005, came close to war in April 2012 when tensions over oil pipeline fees and disputed territory escalated. Both countries agreed South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar will visit Sudan in one week, state news agency SUNA said, citing the Foreign Ministry. His trip had been planned for Sunday, but was delayed bec

Greece's small Democratic Left party could pull out of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's ruling coalition after talks to resume state television broadcasts collapsed, party officials said on Thursday, plunging the nation into fresh turmoil. Lawmakers from the leftist party - which was angered by the abrupt shutdown of broadcaster ERT last week - will meet at 0730 GMT (0330 ET) on Friday to decide whether to continue backing Samaras, who in turn warned he was ready to press ahead without them. "I want us to continue together as we started but I will move on either way," Samaras said in a televised statement, vowing to implement public sector reforms demanded by lenders. "Our aim is to conclude our effort to save the country, always with a four-year term in our sights. We hope for the Democratic Left's support."   Samaras's New Democracy party and its Socialist PASOK ally jointly have 153 deputies, a majority of three in the country's 300-memb

Brazil's biggest protests in two decades intensified on Thursday despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations, as 300,000 people took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro and hundreds of thousands more flooded other cities. Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, marchers demonstrated around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis.   "Twenty cents was just the start," read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central Sao Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions. In the capital, Brasilia, tens of thousands of protesters by early evening marched around the landmark modernist buildings that house Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential offices. The swelling tide of protests prompted President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a trip next

Sudanese people who have fled a recent surge in fighting in the western Darfur region live in terrible conditions and face a "humanitarian disaster," a U.N. human rights expert said after visiting the strife-torn region. _0"> War broke out in the western region of Darfur over a decade ago. Mainly African tribes took up arms against the Arab government in Khartoum, accusing it of marginalization.   Violence is down from a 2004-2005 peak but a new wave of fighting between the army, rebels and competing tribes has displaced since January about 300,000 people who live in camps across the vast arid region. "The difficult conditions facing the people ... especially women and children, were terrible," Mashood Adebayo Baderin said on Thursday in Khartoum after visiting a camp for displaced people in South Darfur. Baderin, a Nigerian asked by the United Nations Human Rights Council to assess the situation in Sudan, made his third trip to the African country. &

An estimated 1 million people took to the streets in cities across Brazil on Thursday as the country's biggest protests in two decades intensified despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations. Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, demonstrators marched around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis. While the protests remained mostly peaceful, the growing number of participants led to occasional outbursts of violence and vandalism in some cities. In central Rio de Janeiro, where 300,000 people marched, police afterwards chased looters and dispersed people crowding into surrounding areas. "Twenty cents was just the start," read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central São Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions. Police th

A U.S. congressman who has been blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng's main champion in Washington said people working for New York University have tried to keep him from meeting Chen, barging into a meeting on Capitol Hill and pulling Chen out on one occasion. U.S. Representative Chris Smith, an outspoken supporter of Chinese dissidents since the 1980s, described repeated instances of various people he says were from NYU interfering in his attempts to meet with Chen. NYU spokesman John Beckman in an email vigorously disputed the assertion that its representatives may have been involved in improper interference or control of Chen during his meetings with lawmakers and others, stressing that anyone present was there to help Chen at his request.   The encounters took place both in Washington and at NYU. Chen has been a research fellow at NYU Law School since he flew to the United States in May 2012 after he escaped from house arrest in his village in Shandong province and too

The head of a newly revived federal privacy oversight board pledged on Wednesday to be "as transparent and public as possible" as the board reviews recently exposed U.S. government secret surveillance programs. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which has been largely dormant since 2008, held its first full-fledged meeting on Wednesday after the Senate confirmed David Medine as its chairman last month.   The meeting was behind closed doors to review classified information about the vast and controversial Internet and phone monitoring programs. But Medine told Reuters that the board is aiming to hold a public event around July 9 to get legal insight from experts, academics and advocates. "Based on what we've learned so far, the board believes further questions are warranted," said Medine, who previously was a partner at the law firm WilmerHale and served as an associate director at the Federal Trade Commission. Still without formal email, a we