NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday and declared "equality and justice have no boundaries" after China let him leave a Beijing hospital to quell a sensitive diplomatic rift between the two countries. Chen escaped from house arrest in northeastern China last month and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, embarrassing China and creating an uncomfortable backdrop for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to improve ties between the world's two biggest economies. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - NATO leaders gather in Chicago on Sunday for a summit that will chart a path out of Afghanistan, as Western nations seek to fend off fissures in their alliance and ensure Afghanistan can hold a still-potent Taliban at bay when foreign troops withdraw. President Barack Obama hosts the summit in his home town, Chicago, a day after leaders of major industrialized nations tackled Europe's debt crisis, backing keeping Greece in the euro zone and vowing to take steps necessary to revitalize the world economy. ...

BONDENO, Italy (Reuters) - A strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of northern Italy early on Sunday, killing at least three people and causing serious damage to the area's cultural heritage. The 6.0 magnitude quake struck at 22:04 EDT (0204 GMT) while most people were sleeping, and thousands ran into the streets in their night clothes in panic. "I ran out in my underwear," one man told Italian television. ...

CAMP DAVID, Maryland (Reuters) - World leaders backed keeping Greece in the euro zone on Saturday and vowed to take all steps necessary to combat financial turmoil while revitalizing a global economy increasingly threatened by Europe's debt crisis. A summit of the G8 leading industrialized nations came down solidly in favor of a push to balance European austerity - an approach long driven by German Chancellor Angela Merkel - with a new dose of U.S.-style stimulus seen as vital to healing ailing euro-zone economies. But it was clear that divisions remained. ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb killed nine people at a Syrian military post in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Saturday, an attack the government said was the latest proof that an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad was a foreign plot. The official SANA news agency said the blast had been the work of a suicide bomber, and had also wounded about 100 people, including guards, at what it called military installations. International pressure and an U.N.-backed peace plan has failed to quell Syria's turmoil. ...

CAMP ROUND MEADOW, Maryland (Reuters) - Britain may keep a small number of soldiers in Afghanistan to fight terrorism after 2014, when NATO forces are due to end combat operations, a senior British government official said on Saturday. It is the first time Britain has given any indication it may keep forces in Afghanistan after 2014 apart from a small training contingent. Britain plans to withdraw 500 soldiers from its 9,500-strong force in Afghanistan this year before ending combat operations in 2014 when Afghan security forces are due to have taken over responsibility for security. ...

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's "red shirts" took to the street this weekend to mark the anniversary of the army's bloody repression of their mass rally in Bangkok in 2010 amid growing signs of a rift with the government they helped elect last July. Many red shirts are angry at the failure of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to bring to account those responsible for the 91 deaths during the 2010 events. Some are threatening action that could destabilise her government and start another period of political upheaval, after months of relative calm. ...

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered the early release from jail of his highest-profile political rival Sarath Fonseka, the president's spokesman said on Sunday, in an apparent bid to quell international criticism of the government's human rights record. The authorisation for Fonseka's release will be sent to the justice ministry on Monday, spokesman Bandula Jayasekara said. The former general is expected to be free soon afterwards, but will not be able to leave the country. ...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators protested in Mexico City on Saturday against opposition presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, who is far ahead in polls and poised to lead the party that ruled Mexico for much of the 20th century back to power. A contingent of mainly students, accompanied by groups of unionized workers and peasant farmers, held banners lambasting the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and its candidate, Pena Nieto. "I have a brain, I won't vote for the PRI," one banner read. ...

Confronting an economic crisis that threatens them all, President Barack Obama and leaders of other world powers on Saturday declared that their governments must both spark growth and cut the debt that has crippled the European continent and put investors worldwide on edge.

The Group of Eight world leaders has warned North Korea that it faces more sanctions if it continues to threaten the stability of the region with provocative acts such as its failed long-range rocket launch in April.

A blind Chinese legal activist who was suddenly allowed to leave the country arrived in the U.S. on Saturday, ending a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations.

Sri Lanka's president has ordered authorities to free the country's jailed former army chief, a man credited with ending the country's long civil war but who later was imprisoned after challenging the president in elections.

Taiwan's president began his second term Sunday and signaled he will maintain a China policy that has reduced tensions between the sides, offering Beijing little early hope of realizing its long-term goal of unification.

Monjes budistas encabezaron las oraciones de decenas de miles de personas que se congregaron en la capital tailandesa el sábado, en el segundo aniversario de los mortíferos choques entre soldados y los manifestantes "Camisas Rojas".

A Myanmar negotiator says ethnic Shan rebels have agreed in a second round of talks to end fighting with army troops in the country's east, the latest reported deal between the new reformist government and various ethnic separatist movements.

A bomb exploded outside an Italian high school named after the wife of an assassinated anti-Mafia prosecutor, killing one student and wounding at least seven others, officials said.

The first-ever transgender contestant to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant strutted the runway Saturday night, making it to the penultimate round before losing her bid to win the title.