Reuters World News Highlights 1000 GMT, Dec 19
Dec 19 (Reuters) - WASHINGTON - Security at the U.S.
mission in Benghazi, Libya was grossly inadequate to deal with a Sept. 11 attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others because of failures within the State Department, an official inquiry found on Tuesday.
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SEOUL - South Koreans voted in big numbers for a new president on Wednesday in freezing winter temperatures in a battle that has pitted the daughter of their former military ruler against a man her father jailed for political activism.
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PESHAWAR - Three workers in a polio eradication campaign were shot in Pakistan on Wednesday, and two of them were killed, the latest in a string of attacks that has partially halted the U.N.-backed global health campaign to stamp out the crippling disease.
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ATHENS - Greek public sector workers walked off the job on Wednesday in protest at new austerity measures and planned layoffs, disrupting local transport, grounding flights and shutting schools and tax offices.
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WASHINGTON - Frustrated by their inability to wring more "fiscal cliff" concessions out of President Barack Obama, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives announced Tuesday night that they expect to pass their own tax bill as a backup plan to avert the tax hikes and automatic budget cuts set to occur in January.
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NEWTOWN - Most students returned to school in the devastated Connecticut community of Newtown on Tuesday for the first time since a gunman's rampage killed 26 people in an elementary school, reviving the gun control debate in Washington.
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CAIRO - Opponents of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi staged protests in Cairo on Tuesday against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has divided Egypt but looks set to be approved in the second half of a referendum this weekend.
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BEIRUT - Russia sent warships to the Mediterranean to prepare a potential evacuation of its citizens from Syria, a Russian news agency said on Tuesday, a sign President Bashar al-Assad's key ally is worried about rebel advances that now threaten even the capital.
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MATALE - A mass grave unearthed in Sri Lanka has stirred memories of the country's bloody insurgencies and sparked calls for an official inquiry in the island nation that has drawn global scrutiny for its chequered human rights record.
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CARACAS - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez suffered a respiratory infection but is "stable" again in a Cuban hospital following cancer surgery a week ago, the government said on Tuesday.