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MADRID (Reuters) - Real Madrid midfielder David Beckham was left on the bench for a second league match in succession for the first time since he joined the Spanish club in 2003. New signing Jose Antonio Reyes, who has been in impressive form since joining the club from Arsenal in the close season, started on the right side of midfield in place of the former England captain for Saturday's league  ...

By Martyn Herman LONDON (Reuters) - Champions Chelsea hit the top of the table for the first time this season when a second-half Frank Lampard double earned them a 2-0 victory at local rivals Fulham in the Premier League on Saturday. England midfielder Lampard, criticised for his performances at the World Cup, took his season's tally to four with a 73rd-minute penalty and right-foot finish seven minutes later. Manchester United failed to join Chelsea at the top when they were held 1-1 at Read ...

By Peter Graff and Mussab Al-Khairalla BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed. The bomb -- most likely a car bomb, according to police -- struck near a tanker distributing kerosene for stoves in Sadr City, whose two million or more poor residents are the power base of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army milit ...

By Martin Burlund ROSKILDE, Denmark (Reuters) - A ship carrying the remains of the mother of Russia's last tsar set sail on Saturday from Denmark for Russia, where they will be laid to rest next to her late husband in accordance with her wishes. The reburial of Empress Maria Fyodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, has been postponed several times because of a Russian-Danish row over a Chechen confere ...

By Sandor Peto BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people poured into Budapest's parliament square on Saturday in the biggest rally so far against Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany over his admission that he lied to the electorate. More demonstrators were still arriving in the late afternoon to join at least 30,000 already in the large square in front of the huge neo-Gothic parliament building, where protests have been held for the past week. The demonstrations have widened the  ...

By Tony Jimenez STRAFFAN (Reuters) - Ryder Cup holders Europe, inspired by the irrepressible Sergio Garcia and a hole-in-one from Paul Casey, surged into a 10-5 lead over the U.S. on Saturday with one foursomes match still on the course. Garcia made it four wins from four matches this week, and a remarkable eight out of eight in his foursomes career, when he and Luke Donald eased past Phil Mickelson and David Toms 2 & 1 at the K Club. Minutes later, Casey used a four-iron to ace the 213-yard  ...

By Peter Graff and Alastair Macdonald BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed. The bomb -- most likely a car bomb, according to police -- struck near a tanker distributing kerosene for stoves in Sadr City, whose poor residents are the power base of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia. In addition to t ...

By Anna Willard PARIS (Reuters) - France and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm a report that Osama bin Laden had died and France launched a probe into how a secret document containing the claim was leaked. The French regional daily L'Est Republicain, published in Nancy, quoted a document from France's DGSE foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August. President Jacques ...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Two International Committee of the Red Cross workers abducted earlier this week in southern Ethiopia have been released unharmed, the aid agency and Irish government said on Saturday. "He was released and is now safely back in his base," a spokesman for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs said of Irish aid worker Donal O'Suilleabhain. His Ethiopian colleague had also been  ...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Two International Committee of the Red Cross workers abducted earlier this week in southern Ethiopia have been released unharmed, the Irish government said on Saturday. "He was released and is now safely back in his base," a spokesman for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs said of Irish aid worker Donal O'Suilleabhain. His Ethiopian colleague had also been freed as part o ...