By Tom Perry and Yousri Mohamed CAIRO/ISMAILIA (Reuters) - Seven Egyptian security men kidnapped by Islamist militants in Sinai last week were freed on Wednesday and President Mohamed Mursi vowed to pursue a crackdown on lawlessness in the desert peninsula. The abduction underlined the threat posed by jihadists who have exploited a security vacuum that opened up in the isolated Sinai after the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. The state has struggled to restore order there since. ...

By Erika Solomon BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels fighting for control of the Syrian town of Qusair called for reinforcements on Wednesday to repel forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war which is spreading violence through an already volatile region. Opposition fighters said air strikes and shelling rocked the small town on the Syrian-Lebanese border that has seen some of the fiercest fighting in months in the two-year-old war that has so far cost at least 80,000 lives. ...

KIROV, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian official undermined state prosecutors' case against protest leader Alexei Navalny at his trial on theft charges on Wednesday, saying that he had done no harm. Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's biggest critics, said the testimony of Kirov region governor Nikita Belykh showed he was not guilty of charges of stealing from a timber company. But he said he still expected to be convicted because he was not getting a fair trial. ...

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland's center-right Progressive and Independence parties agreed on a coalition government on Wednesday and said they would freeze talks on entering the European Union until a referendum on whether or not to continue the process. Both parties made big gains in elections last month where voters, fed up with years of austerity and rising debts, handed the incumbent Social Democrats the worst defeat of any ruling party since independence from Denmark in 1944. ...

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov ordered a dozen local reporters to be barred from covering government meetings after they staged a protest on Wednesday over attacks on journalists at a rally. When reporters at the cabinet meeting stepped in front of television cameras and turned their backs, emblazoned with slogans, on Azarov and his colleagues, the prime minister reacted sharply. "What kind of show is this?" he said. ...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's main opposition alliance on Wednesday urged fighters from around the country to reinforce a rebel-held town under attack by President Bashar Assad's troops and their allies from the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 33-year-old Polish man received a life-saving total face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest timeframe to date for such an operation.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that a decision by election overseers to disqualify his top aide from next month's presidential race is an act of "oppression" and that he will take the case to the country's supreme leader.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — After months of ignoring Chinese warnings to give up nuclear weapons, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a high-level confidant to Beijing on Wednesday, in a possible effort to mend strained ties with his country's most important ally and a sign that he may be giving diplomacy a chance.

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — An 80-year-old Japanese extreme skier who climbed Mount Everest five years ago, but just missed becoming the oldest man to reach the summit, was back on the mountain Wednesday to make another attempt at the title.

LONDON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's signal that monetary policy will remain loose gave stocks another lift Wednesday, paving the way for many indexes to advance to new record highs.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is reassessing whether to declare the Lebanese party Hezbollah's military wing a terrorist organization, a move it has long shied from despite pressure from the United States, officials said Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — China's premier began a two-day visit to Pakistan on Wednesday by praising the relationship between the two Asian powers in glowing terms.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan left a hospital Wednesday, more than two weeks after he suffered serious back injuries in a fall from a forklift at a campaign event, a spokesman said.

By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - An Irishman was charged on Wednesday over a bombing that killed four soldiers on horseback in the heart of London in 1982, one of the most high-profile attacks by IRA guerrillas in their campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland. John Downey, 61, from County Donegal in Ireland, is accused of murdering four members of the Royal Household Cavalry who were killed when a car bomb exploded in Hyde Park as they paraded towards Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth's residence. ...

PRAGUE (AP) — A publicist for an upcoming Marilyn Monroe exhibition in Prague says that photographs of the star have been stolen.

By Barbara Liston and Mark Hosenball ORLANDO, Fla./WASHINGTON. (Reuters) - An FBI agent shot and killed a Florida man who turned violent while being questioned about the Boston Marathon bombings early on Wednesday, the bureau said. A friend of the dead man told the Orlando Sentinel and Orlando television stations that he was 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev of Orlando, a Chechen who had previously lived in Boston. Two brothers identified by the FBI as suspects in the April 15 bombings were also ethnic Chechens with roots in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region. ...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister has ordered a shake-up of his military command after a weeklong spike of militant attacks that has killed nearly 300 people, by far the highest toll since the U.S. withdrew its forces in late 2011, an official said Wednesday.

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday Iran and its militant Shi'ite Lebanese ally Hezbollah were "propping up" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and giving him increasing support. "It is very clear that Syrian regime is receiving a great deal of support, increasing support in recent months from outside Syria from Hezbollah and Iran. This is a regime that is increasingly dependent on external support," Hague said in a news conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh. ...

ROME (Reuters) - The captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which capsized off Italy's west coast last year killing 32 people, will face trial for manslaughter as well as other charges, an Italian judge ruled on Wednesday. The giant Costa Concordia flipped on its side outside the Tuscan port of Giglio in January last year after it struck rocks during a maneuver that brought it too close to the shore. The accident triggered a chaotic night-time evacuation of more than 4,000 passengers and crew from the 290-metre-long ship (951-ft), which still rests on a rock shelf outside the port. ...