Iran nuclear talks set for February 26

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran and world powers announced new talks on Tehran's nuclear program on February 26, but hopes of progress after Tuesday's announcement were tempered when an Iranian official said the West's goal in talking was to undermine the Islamic republic.

First word of the meeting, to be held in Kazakhstan, came in comments from Iran's Supreme National Security Council to state news agency IRNA. Later, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped to make progress in allaying concerns about a program Iran denies has a military purpose.

Both sides said the widely expected appointment to meet was made on Tuesday by Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri and European Union counterpart Helga Schmid. However, there were immediate signs from Iran, which holds a presidential election in June, that powerful figures were skeptical of their worth.

Western powers say Iran may be close to having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, though Tehran insists it is seeking only electricity. The United States and its allies, which have imposed tough economic sanctions, are keen to show progress on an overall agreement for curbing and monitoring Iran's nuclear activities - not least because Israel, seeing itself especially threatened, has warned it could mount a pre-emptive attack.

A spokesman for Ashton, who represents the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany, said: "She hopes that the talks will be productive and that concrete progress can be made towards a negotiated solution to meet the international community's concerns about the Iranian nuclear program."

WESTERN "ARROGANCE"

But comments by Abdollah Haj-Sadeghi, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), indicated continued differences of opinion in Tehran; those may limit the prospect of narrowing the dispute with the West at the talks in Almaty, the first of their kind since negotiators met in Moscow in June.

"They will never want real dialogue and negotiations," Haj-Sadeghi was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency, addressing religious students in the theological center of Qom.

"Their goal is to inhibit the Islamic revolution. If they can't eliminate the Islamic revolution, they want to weaken and inhibit this revolution," he said. "A revolution with a religious nature cannot reconcile itself with arrogance."

Iranian officials often use the term "arrogant" to denote Western nations. It was not immediately clear whether he was referring to the continuing process of negotiation with the six world powers, known as the P5+1, or to the prospect of direct negotiations with the United States, Iran's main adversary.

Haj-Sadeghi's remarks contrasted with those of Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who said in Berlin on Monday that he was "optimistic" regarding what he saw as a new approach from the United States regarding Iran.

Shashank Joshi, a senior fellow and Middle East specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, said the mixed messages reflected Iran's "fragmented" political system, in which power is divided between elected and unelected bodies.

"Haj-Sadeghi's comments are consistent with a widely held Iranian view: that sanctions are less about the nuclear issue and more about regime change," Joshi said.

"He may therefore have been repeating a standard line rather than responding to Salehi."

Many Iranian leaders may be wary of entering talks which quickly collapse, Joshi said.

"Some of this rhetoric is therefore a way of managing expectations, and pushing responsibility for failure back on to the West," he said.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Writing by Marcus George; Editing by William Maclean and Alastair Macdonald)

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North Korea threatens "stronger" measures than nuclear test

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea stepped up its bellicose rhetoric on Tuesday threatening to go beyond carrying out a promised third nuclear test in response to what it believes are "hostile" sanctions imposed after a December rocket launch.

The North frequently employs fiery rhetoric aimed at South Korea and the United States and in 2010 was blamed for sinking a South Korean naval vessel. It also shelled a South Korean island in the same year, killing civilians.

It did not spell out the actions it would take. The North is not capable of staging a military strike on the United States, although South Korea is in range of its artillery and missiles and it can hit Japan with its missiles.

"The DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or North Korea) has drawn a final conclusion that it will have to take a measure stronger than a nuclear test to cope with the hostile forces nuclear war moves that have become ever more undisguised," the North's KCNA state news agency said.

The United States and South Korea are staging military drills that North Korea says are a rehearsal for an invasion, something both Washington and Seoul deny.

The North successfully launched a long-range rocket in December in violation of U.N. resolutions that banned it from developing missile or nuclear technology after nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

The North says that it has the sovereign right to launch rockets for peaceful purposes.

Its widely trailed third nuclear test was announced in response to the sanctions agreed in January, although satellite imagery indicates that the isolated and impoverished state has been readying its nuclear test site for more than a year.

While most experts believe the North will stage a test, the timing is not known. It could come around February 16, the anniversary of former leader Kim Jong-il's birth.

LIMITATIONS

Another unknown is what the North will use as fissile material. In the past it has used its diminishing supply of plutonium stocks, but is believed to have enriched weapons grade uranium that would give it a second path to a nuclear bomb.

U.S. nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker, who visited a North Korean nuclear facility in 2010 believes the North could stage two explosions, one using plutonium to as to perfect its capacity to design a warhead small enough to be mounted on a missile, and a second using highly enriched uranium.

"Such (dual) tests have some technical limitations and are more challenging to conduct, but they have the huge advantage of not incurring additional political cost - in other words, they can get two for the price of one," Hecker wrote in the February 4 issue of Foreign Policy magazine.

Pyongyang's two tests so far have been puny. The yield of the 2006 test is estimated at somewhat less than 1 kiloton (1,000 tons of TNT equivalent) and the second some 2-7 kilotons, compared with say 20 kilotons for a Nagasaki type bomb, Hecker wrote.

North Korea has in the past used the leverage gained from its nuclear and rocket tests to try to restart six-party talks aimed at securing international recognition and aid for the country whose only major diplomatic backer is China.

There are few signs that the United States is willing to talk after the North rebuffed a food aid deal in March 2012 when it launched a long-range rocket after promising not to.

The planned third nuclear test and "stronger" measures come as South Korea prepares to swear in new President Park Geun-hye on February 25. Park had pledged talks and aid if the North gives up its nuclear ambitions.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

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India gang-rape trial starts with testimony from victim's friend

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The trial of five men charged with gang-raping and murdering a young woman on a bus in New Delhi opened on Tuesday with closed-door testimony from her friend who appeared at court in a wheelchair, still bearing the scars of injuries from the attack.

The 28-year-old software engineer, who may not be identified, is the prosecution's star witness in a case that has triggered nationwide protests, an intense debate about rampant crime against women in India and tougher anti-rape laws.

The five accused are Vinay Sharma, a gym assistant, Ram Singh, the bus driver, his brother Mukesh Singh, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh and fruit vendor Pawan Kumar. They have pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and murder. A sixth accused is being tried separately as a juvenile.

Police allege the six attacked the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist and her friend on the bus as the couple returned home from watching a movie on December 16. The woman was repeatedly raped and tortured with a metal bar. The couple were also severely beaten before being thrown onto a road.

The woman died of internal injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.

As the trial got under way, the victim's father made a surprise appearance at a news conference organized by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to call for his daughter's attackers to be hanged.

At one stage, the friend, defense lawyers and some policemen moved from the courtroom to a courtyard where the bus on which police say the attack took place was parked.

Journalists saw some of them board the vehicle, which was white with tinted windows and orange curtains. Above the windshield was painted "Praise the Goddess" in Hindi.

The victim's friend was not seen boarding the bus. The friend's father said later it was the second time his son had seen the bus since the attack.

In his statement to police after the assault, the friend said their attackers had asked "where are you going with a girl so late at night?" before launching a furious assault in which he was beaten with a metal rod and his clothes ripped off. While he was being beaten, the woman was repeatedly raped, he said, according to a police charge sheet seen by Reuters.

The prosecution says articles stolen from the couple, including their cellphones, rings and debit cards were found in raids conducted on the homes of the accused. DNA evidence and bloodstained clothes also form part of their case.

Defense lawyers say they will highlight what they say are discrepancies in the account given by the victim's friend.

The five men are being tried in a special fast-track court opposite the shopping mall where the victim and her friend went to watch the film "Life of Pi" before boarding the bus.

About 30 policemen were deployed outside the courtroom on Tuesday as the five accused arrived wearing scarves or handkerchiefs to mask their faces.

(Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty, Arup Roychoudhury and Satarupa Bhattacharjya, writing by Ross Colvin; Editing by John Chalmers and Robert Birsel)

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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed.

Seeking to step up pressure on Assad to respond to his offer of talks - which dismayed some in his own opposition coalition, Alkhatib said he would be ready to meet the president's deputy.

"I ask the regime to send Farouq al-Shara - if it accepts the idea - and we can sit with him," he said, referring to Syria's vice president who has implicitly distanced himself from Assad's crackdown on mass unrest that became an armed revolt.

Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials, Alkhatib said none of them had an answer to the 22-month-old crisis and Syrians must solve it themselves.

"The issue is now in the state's court...to accept negotiations for departure, with fewer losses," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Arabiya television.

The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on opposition contacts with Damascus and angered many in its ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.

Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.

"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he said in separate comments to Al Jazeera television.

Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".

Syria's defense minister said the army had proved it would not be defeated in its confrontation with rebels but declined to say whether it would respond to an Israeli air strike last week.

Security sources said the Israelis bombed a convoy of arms destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, in neighboring Lebanon. Syria said the attack struck vehicles and buildings at a military research center near Lebanon's border.

Syria's uprising erupted in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority. His family has ruled Syria for 42 years.

ANGER AT IRAN

The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions isolating Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional supporter.

Alkhatib met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a security conference in Germany at the weekend.

"Iran's stance is unacceptable and I mentioned to the foreign minister that we are very angry with Iran's support for the regime," Alkhatib said.

He said he asked Salehi to pass on his offer of negotiations - based on the acceptance of the Assad government's departure - to Damascus. The two men also discussed the need to prevent Syria's crisis spreading into a regional conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, he said.

"We will find a solution, there are many keys. If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."

One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought that could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.

Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, an opposition activist said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 people were killed by dusk on Monday.

It said 180 people were killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.

Assad has described the rebels as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.

The majority of the insurgents are Islamists but those affiliated with al Qaeda are smaller in number, although their influence is growing. For that reason, Western states have been loath to arm the rebels despite their calls for Assad's ouster.

Rebels and activists say that Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant movement Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - an accusation that both deny.

ECONOMIC SUPPORT

"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iran's Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.

"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq; we have not been successful."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said later on Monday that Syria's crisis could not be solved by military means and he called for a national accord leading to elections.

"War is not the solution...A government that rules through war - its work will be very difficult. A sectarian war should not be launched in Syria," he told Al Mayadeen television.

"We believe that (deciding) whoever stays or goes is the right of the Syrian people. How can we interfere in that? We must strive to achieve national understanding, and free elections."

Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.

Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.

But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad. Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.

"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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France arrests suspected Islamists in Mali rebels probe

PARIS (Reuters) - French police arrested four suspected Islamist militants near Paris on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the recruitment of volunteers by al Qaeda insurgents in Mali, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said.

France's intervention in Mali to rid its former colony of Islamist fighters has prompted the authorities to increase security against possible reprisal attacks on its interests in mainland France and abroad.

Anti-terrorism judge Marc Trevidic, who is in charge of the operation, told Reuters last month that France needed more robust local policing, better intelligence sharing and the ability to infiltrate small radical Islamist groups if it hopes to fight new security threats on its soil. [ID:nL5N0AW0LN].

Analysts say the insurgency that seized the north of Mali is paving the way for attacks on France as more French Muslims of African origin were finding a cause in the conflict.

"France is really being singled out at the moment," said Anne Giudicelli, consultant with national security specialists Terrorisc.

"It's being accused of wanting to occupy Muslim territory and that could clearly push some individuals to take action, or encourage others to build up a network," she told Reuters.

A police source said three of the four men arrested on Tuesday were Franco-Congolese and one was Malian.

Valls said the arrests had come after a long investigation into al Qaeda recruitment rings led by Trevidic.

"There is an operation ongoing in the Paris region, conducted by the DCRI (domestic security service), which comes after the arrest of an individual a few months ago on the border between Mali and Niger," he told BFM TV.

That man was a Franco-Congolese social worker named Cedric Lobo, 27, who was arrested in Niamey, the capital of Niger, while trying to reach the historic Malian city of Timbuktu to join al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the source said.

He was subsequently extradited to France, where he was charged with planning attacks and remanded in custody.

"ENEMY FROM WITHIN"

French nationals drawn to violent militant groups had a number of points in common, said Interior minister Valls, who has taken a hard line on law and order and warned France is facing an "enemy from within."

"The profiles are often individuals that have had problems with the law, been involved in drug trafficking, and have sometimes converted to radical Islam either in prison, through the Internet or by travelling overseas," Valls told reporters.

French anti-terrorism judges have opened a number of preliminary investigations in the past year into individuals suspected of links to what they say are Malian terrorist cells.

Valls said police had stopped several individuals trying to travel from France to the Sahel - a vast swathe of semi-arid territory stretching from Senegal in the west to Eritrea in the east - known as a base for traffickers and Islamist militants.

He said a "handful" of French nationals had already joined al Qaeda-linked groups.

"There is no direct threat, but there are threats on the Internet, on social networks, calling on people to wage war, to attack French interests," Valls said.

France has tightened security in public buildings and on public transport, although it has kept its security alert level at red, signifying "probable threats", one down from the scarlet level which means "definite threats".

Highlighting the threat overseas, Paris has raised its travel warning for its citizens across the Muslim world.

The embassy in Tunis on Monday confirmed that a French school in the Tunisian capital had been sprayed with graffiti warning of reprisals after France's intervention in Mali.

(Additional reporting by Nicolas Bertin, John Irish and Vicky Buffery; Writing by Nicholas Vinocur and John Irish; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Egypt protester who died of wounds was tortured: security sources

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian activist who died on Monday was beaten unconscious during interrogation at a security camp where he was detained for three days, two security sources said on Tuesday.

Human rights campaigners say the same brutal tactics that helped ignite the uprising against autocrat Hosni Mubarak two years ago are back under the auspices of freely elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

Mohamed el-Gendi, 23, was rounded up along with other youth protesters on January 25, the second anniversary of the start of the anti-Mubarak revolt, and taken to Gabal Ahmar, a state security camp on the outskirts of Cairo.

Gendi remained there for three days and nights when he was "interrogated" and beaten, the sources said, adding that the officers had become more aggressive when he talked back to them.

The interior ministry denied accusations that Gendi was tortured, saying in its report on the matter that he was found injured on the street after he was hit by a car on January 28, and taken to Cairo's Hilal hospital where he died some days later.

The security sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to journalists.

At least 59 people have died in the latest street violence to hit Egypt, which has been in political turmoil since Mubarak's fall with the latest demonstrations protesting at Mursi's perceived drift towards authoritarianism.

To many Egyptians, Gendi's case recalls that of Khaled Said, a youth who activists said was tortured to death by police in 2011. Said's case helped ignite the uprising.

"We are seeing a return of police brutality that was the hallmark of Mubarak's rule," said Hafez Abo Seida from the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights.

Mursi's office said on Monday it was in touch with the public prosecutor to look into the causes of Gendi's death.

"The presidency stresses that there shall be no return to violating the rights of citizens, their public and private freedoms in light of the rule of law and the blessed January 25 revolution," it said in a statement.

Abo Seida said there was an apparent campaign against youth activists agitating against Mursi's rule, what they see as the Muslim Brotherhood's grip on power and a police force not held accountable for the deaths of some 850 anti-Mubarak protesters.

FACEBOOK ACTIVISM

Two other activists, Gaber Salah (known as Jika) and Mohamed Hussein (known as Mohamed Christie), killed in violent protests over the past month were known to be active on Facebook pages critical of the Brotherhood.

Gendi belonged to the leftist Popular Current, which said he had also been electrocuted in custody and was left with a wire around his neck.

Doctors at Hilal hospital said Gendi was in a coma when he died, having suffered brain and lung injuries as well as multiple fractures. They made no mention of traces of electrocution or strangulation.

"He was unconscious when he was delivered to Hilal hospital," a medic there told Reuters.

Since Mursi took office seven months ago, little has been done to overhaul the national police or rehabilitate its leadership, which had been accused by international and local human rights groups of perpetrating routine abuses.

Activists and Egyptian officials say Mursi has taken few steps to hold officers accountable, fearing a backlash from the powerful police generals who run the interior ministry.

Abo Seida said Mursi and Prime Minister Hisham Kandil had given the police a license to use force by ordering them to deal firmly with any protests that turned violent.

"President Mursi has been trying to motivate the police force and encourage them to return to policing the streets to establish order. But clearly these officers are not equipped with the right tactics to deal with protesters," he said.

The recent tide of unrest has been fuelled by anger at what activists see as Mursi's attempt to monopolize power since his election, as well as a sense of social and economic malaise that has settled over Egypt since Mubarak's ouster.

A state of emergency remains in force in three cities near the Suez Canal that have also witnessed protests against Mursi and the Brotherhood, the Islamist group that propelled him to power in a June election.

(Reporting by Marwa Awad and Alexander Dziadosz; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Bulgaria says Hezbollah behind fatal bus bombing

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria said on Tuesday it had evidence showing that Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah carried out a bomb attack on a bus in the Black Sea city of Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists last year.

The conclusions of the Bulgarian investigation, citing a clear connection to an attack on European Union soil, might open the way for the EU to join the United States in branding the Iranian-backed Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

Three people were involved in the attack, two of whom had genuine passports from Australia and Canada, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told reporters after Sofia's national security council discussed the investigation.

"There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects," Tsvetanov said.

"What can be established as a well-grounded assumption is that the two persons whose real identity has been determined belonged to the military wing of Hezbollah."

Israel blamed the attack in Burgas, which killed five Israeli tourists, their Bulgarian driver and the bomber, on Iran and Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Islamist militia that is part of the Lebanese government and waged a brief 2006 war with Israel.

Iran has denied responsibility and accused arch-enemy Israel of plotting and carrying out the bus bombing last July.

Hezbollah, designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in the 1990s, had no immediate reaction to Tuesday's announcement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah and Iran were waging a "global terror campaign" and the Burgas bomb was just one in a series of attacks carried out against civilians in Thailand, Kenya, Turkey, India, Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Georgia.

"The attack in Burgas was an attack on European soil against a member of the European Union. We hope the Europeans will draw the necessary conclusions about the true character of Hezbollah," Netanyahu said in a statement.

EU ASSESSING RESULTS

"The implications of the investigation need to be assessed seriously as they relate to a terrorist attack on EU soil," a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said. "The EU and member states will discuss the appropriate response based on all elements identified by the investigators."

The Netherlands considers Hezbollah a terrorist group and said in August that the EU should also do so, which would mean Brussels could act to freeze Hezbollah assets in Europe.

Britain reserves the designation for Hezbollah's armed wing but other EU member states, which have blacklisted the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, have resisted U.S. and Israeli pressure to do the same to Hezbollah.

Bulgaria, a member of NATO as well as the EU, had previously said that the bombing was plotted elsewhere and carried out by foreigners. Even so, that attack stoked tension in a country where Muslims make up some 15 percent of the 7.3 million population.

All three people involved in the attack had fake U.S. driving licenses that were printed in Lebanon, Tsvetanov said. The two suspects with Canadian and Australian passports had been living in Lebanon, one since 2006 and the other since 2010.

No one has been arrested in connection with the attack and Tsvetanov said he hoped Australia, Canada and Lebanon would cooperate with the continuing investigation.

(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov in Sofia, Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Sam Cage; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Britain's PM faces gay marriage revolt as plots swirl

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservative party split in two on Tuesday over his plans to legalize gay marriage, a move that many of his own lawmakers said was wrong, not a priority for the public, and unnecessarily divisive.

Many Conservative MPs stood up in parliament to denounce the legislation ahead of a vote in which up to half of Cameron's 303 lawmakers are expected to reject the measure on moral and religious grounds, threatening a corrosive legacy of bitterness.

It was getting into "Alice in Wonderland territory" for any government to come along and rewrite the rules of marriage, Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale told parliament, echoing the views of many in his own party.

"This is not evolution, it's revolution," added Edward Leigh, another Conservative member of parliament, saying marriage was "by its nature a heterosexual union".

Expected to be carried thanks to support from Cameron's political rivals, the vote will take place soon after 2 p.m. ET.

In a sign of how divisive the issue has become, the finance minister, the foreign secretary and the interior minister implored fellow Conservatives to back the new law.

Cameron is trying to perform a tricky and perhaps impossible balancing act: to reconcile his desire to show his party is progressive, while many of its members are profoundly uncomfortable with such a reform.

Amid talk of a possible leadership challenge to Cameron, many Conservative lawmakers say the prime minister is sacrificing core party values on the altar of populism.

"He hasn't got a lot of political capital left in the bank," Stewart Jackson, a Conservative MP who opposes the gay marriage bill, told Reuters. "He has to deliver some authentic Conservative policies very soon."

Such talk is rife among some Conservative lawmakers and follows a spate of articles in the British press in which a handful of MPs raised the possibility of ousting Cameron, a prospect most commentators regard as far-fetched before the next election in 2015.

The gay marriage initiative has infuriated rank-and-file party activists and a protest letter signed by 25 past and present chairmen of local Conservative associations warned that members were starting to resign over the issue.

Justin Welby, the newly elected Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the world's 80 million Anglicans, used his first comments after being confirmed on Monday to reiterate his opposition to gay marriage.

GRIEVANCES AGAINST CAMERON

Conservative MPs' grievances are many: that Cameron is "arrogant", that he is too fond of the European Union, that the party's policies have been diluted by its coalition partner because Cameron failed to win the last election outright, and a nagging fear that he will not win the next one.

A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times on Sunday showed 55 percent favored legalizing gay marriage, while 36 percent opposed it. However, the same poll showed the issue was not one that concerned most voters.

The new law proposes legalizing same-sex marriage in 2014. It would also allow civil partners to convert their partnerships into marriages.

Gay marriage supporters say while existing civil partnerships for same-sex couples afford the same legal rights as marriage, the distinction implies they are inferior.

In a sometimes emotional debate on Tuesday, several gay MPs from different parties took to their feet to commend the bill, describing the prejudice they had suffered growing up.

"Millions will be watching us today," said Nick Herbert, a gay Conservative MP. "Not just gay people but people who want to live in an equal society."

Faced with strong opposition from the Anglican and Catholic churches, the law would not force them to conduct gay marriages, but critics say gay people may launch legal challenges.

Tuesday's vote in the lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, will be "free", meaning MPs will be able to vote according to their conscience rather than under party orders.

WARNINGS OVER DIVISIONS

Supported by Cameron's junior coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, and by the opposition Labour party, the legislation is months and several stages away from becoming law even, if as expected, it is approved on Tuesday.

Peter Kellner, president of pollster YouGov, said he felt the rebellion would hurt the Conservative party.

"For Cameron, gay marriage is part of his attempt to persuade the voters that his party belongs to modern, 21st century Britain," he wrote on the pollster's site.

"But the divisions that the gay marriages bill has unleashed ... threaten to send an altogether different message: that the Tories are divided, out of touch and prone to quarrel over issues of little concern to most voters."

With the next election still two-and-a-half years distant, there is also a risk that internal party splits over issues like gay marriage could turn what for now is only talk of a possible leadership challenge into the real thing.

"This comes at a difficult time for the prime minister," said Jackson, the Conservative MP. "People in the parliamentary party are wondering why he has got us into this position."

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

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France to host meeting on Libyan security next week

PARIS (Reuters) - Countries that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi will meet in Paris next week to discuss how to stabilize Libya, which has been beset by security problems since the late dictator was toppled, French sources said on Tuesday.

France, which led international efforts to oust Gaddafi, will convene ministers and senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Arab nations, the United Nations and European Union to Tuesday's meeting in Paris.

The French foreign ministry said the agenda would include "security co-operation, the legal system and the rule of law".

Libya and foreign diplomats fear an exodus of Malian and foreign Islamist fighters following a French-led intervention in Mali. Unless Mali's porous borders are secured, weapons smuggling will also pose a threat.

"The Libyan security situation is a real subject of concern for its neighbors and the countries that helped the transition," a French diplomatic source said.

"We need to help the Libyans gain the tools for their own security. It's a difficult situation because they need to rebuild everything for the state."

French forces have been attacking Islamist rebels in Mali for three weeks as African troops assemble ahead of a U.N.-backed campaign to oust insurgents who seized control of northern Mali in April.

The military operation in the former French colony has cranked up tensions in North Africa, with Islamist radicals vowing to strike back at French and Western interests.

Al Qaeda-linked insurgents killed 38 mostly foreign hostages last month when they seized an Algerian gas plant as a riposte to French military operations in Mali.

The Malian crisis was itself in part triggered by the return from Libya of heavily armed fighters, once in the pay of Gaddafi, who inflated the ranks of separatist and Islamist groups that launched attacks on Mali's army in early 2012.

SECURITY CONCERNS

European countries are also at concerned about security. They urged their nationals to leave Libya's eastern city of Benghazi on January 24, Britain citing a "specific and imminent" threat to Westerners days after the Algerian gas plant attack.

The call to leave Libya's second largest city irked Libyans keen to win foreign investment to rebuild a fractured infrastructure and boost the oil industry after the revolution that toppled Gaddafi.

Nevertheless, Libya is worried that if Mali's vast desert borders cannot be secured there will be a flow of weapons and Malian and foreign Islamist fighters back through Algeria and across Libya's borders.

Its Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdulaziz said on January 24 that spillover from Mali's crisis could undermine Libyan security and urged the United Nations to deploy peacekeepers in Mali once French forces withdraw.

U.N. special envoy Tarek Mitri, head of the U.N. mission in Libya, said on January 29 the Libyan authorities faced a serious security challenge in the east, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed in September.

The opposition of armed radical groups to the military intervention in Mali could exacerbate the situation given ideological and ethnic affiliations and Libya's porous border.

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Iran's Ahmadinejad kissed and scolded in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighted deep theological and geopolitical differences.

Mursi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, kissed Ahmadinejad after he landed at Cairo airport and gave him a red carpet reception with military honors. Ahmadinejad beamed as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.

But the Shi'ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt's leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo's historic al-Azhar mosque and university.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognize Bahrain as a "sisterly Arab nation" and rejected the extension of Shi'ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.

Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a news conference he hoped his trip would be "a new starting point in relations between us".

However, a senior cleric from the Egyptian seminary, Hassan al-Shafai, who appeared alongside him, said the meeting had degenerated into an exchange of theological differences.

"There ensued some misunderstandings on certain issues that could have an effect on the cultural, political and social climate of both countries," Shafai said.

"The issues were such that the grand sheikh saw that the meeting ... did not serve the desired purpose."

The visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.

"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his trip.

He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.

Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES

At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of improving relations and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.

Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to reassure Gulf Arab allies - that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran - that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.

"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he said in remarks reported by the official MENA news agency.

Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.

"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.

"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he told Reuters. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."

Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.

Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.

Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a mosque beside Cairo's mediaeval Citadel alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir, Marwa Awad and Alexander Diadosz; Writing by Paul Taylor and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Roche and Robin Pomeroy)

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