By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Ece Toksabay ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Syrian opposition in exile met on Thursday to decide whether to attend a peace conference that the United States and Russia see as a crucial path to ending two years of civil war. Under international pressure to swiftly resolve internal divisions, the Syrian National Coalition began talks in Istanbul to elect a coherent leadership and decide on the conference which could take place in Geneva in the coming weeks. ...

By Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Police investigating the murder of a soldier hacked to death on a busy London street were looking on Friday into whether the two suspected killers, British men of Nigerian descent, were part of a wider conspiracy. The two suspects, aged 22 and 28, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police following the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday in broad daylight. They have not yet been charged. ...

By Arshad Mohammed JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Thursday and acknowledged there was considerable skepticism that the two sides would resume peace negotiations. There were no signs of any breakthrough as Kerry visited Israel for the fourth time in his four months in office to try to revive a peace process that has been moribund for more than two years. ...

By Susan Cornwell and Jane Sutton WASHINGTON/MIAMI (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge on Thursday to lift a ban on transfers of detainees to Yemen from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, addresses one of the core obstacles to clearing out the detention camp. Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen, where al Qaeda has a dangerous presence. There are 80 more prisoners who are not cleared and an unknown number of those are Yemeni as well. Most of the Yemeni prisoners were captured more than a decade ago. ...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's prosecutor's office said on Thursday it would open an investigation into in a recording the opposition says features a top government ally accusing the deputy head of the ruling Socialist Party of corruption and conspiring against the new president. Opposition deputies on Monday broadcast the recording of a conversation they said was between powerful state television commentator Mario Silva and a Cuban intelligence agent and later requested an investigation of it. ...