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HOUSTON (Reuters) - An oil well on the ocean floor beneath a drilling rig that exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico began spewing oil on Saturday, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countries that weathered the global economic crisis with their financial systems relatively unscathed are being shortsighted by opposing a global bank levy, the IMF's chief said on Saturday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Monday's unveiling of a compromise Senate climate bill was postponed on Saturday, Democratic Senator John Kerry said, after a dispute arose over unrelated immigration reform legislation.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - A tornado nearly a mile wide ripped through central Mississippi on Saturday, killing seven people, trapping others in their homes and destroying many buildings, authorities said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Conservatives said on Saturday a stalemate in next month's election would threaten the country's economy as polls showed the tightest election race in nearly 20 years was likely to produce no outright winner.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday marked the World War One-era massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces, calling it one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, but avoiding any mention of "genocide."

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's approval ratings have edged up from rock-bottom lows, with 31 percent declaring themselves satisfied with his work in April, a poll showed Saturday.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - A U.S. drone aircraft fired three missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border Saturday, killing seven militants, Pakistani intelligence officials and residents said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov Saturday told a delegation from Warsaw he hoped the investigation of the April 10 presidential plane crash near Smolensk would help improve ties with Poland.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Finance leaders scrambled to secure aid for debt-stricken Greece on Saturday and Canada cautioned that some European countries feared the 45 billion euros ($60 billion) under consideration was not enough.

YEREVAN (Reuters) - Armenia marked the 95th anniversary on Saturday of the World War One killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, against a backdrop of failed peace with Turkey and fresh saber-rattling with enemy Azerbaijan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countries that weathered the global economic crisis with their financial systems relatively unscathed are being shortsighted by opposing a global bank levy, the IMF's chief said on Saturday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Four Cuban American lawyers and a Miami-based television station have launched a campaign to identify and publicly name Cuban state security agents and pro-government militants who attack dissidents on the island.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc's top executive boasted in late 2007 about the money the investment bank was making from betting against risky mortgages, according to a collection of e-mails released by a Senate panel on Saturday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday a rejected a new, compromise offer by anti-government red-shirt demonstrators to end weeks of increasingly violent protests in return for early polls.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards dismissed as "ridiculous" on Saturday a U.S.-led drive to impose sanctions on the elite force, underlining Tehran's defiance in the face of Western pressure over its nuclear program.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr offered to help the Iraqi government maintain security after bomb attacks against Shi'ites killed 56 people in Baghdad in an apparent backlash by Sunni insurgents.

KABUL (Reuters) - An explosion which killed an American and an Afghan soldier on an army base in Kabul this week was carried out by a suicide bomber, the U.S. military has confirmed, the second time in five months an insurgent has managed to infiltrate a base.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the Obama administration on Saturday to impose a solution to the Middle East conflict that would give his people an independent state.

PARIS (Reuters) - Two-thirds of French people want a law limiting the use of face-covering Islamic veils such as the niqab and the burqa, with only a minority backing the government's plan for a complete ban, a poll showed Saturday.