ANTIQUES SHOPS

Violence in Iraq has eased since the height of the war, but Islamist insurgents tied to al Qaeda are still potent, often targeting Shi'ite pilgrims to try to reignite the sectarian tensions that drove Iraq close to civil war in 2006-2007.

In Wednesday's attacks, at least 18 people were killed when four bombs hit pilgrims across Baghdad as they gathered to mark the anniversary of the death of Shi'ite imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a great-grandson of Prophet Mohammad.

One of those blasts killed at least nine people as pilgrims passed through a police checkpoint in central Baghdad.

"A group of pilgrims were walking and passed by a tent offering food and drinks when suddenly a car exploded near them," said Wathiq Muhana, a policeman whose patrol was stationed near the blast in Karrada district.

"People were running away covered with blood and bodies were scattered on the ground," he said.

Extra security and checkpoints have been in place this week as thousands of pilgrims arrive in Baghdad to meet at a shrine in the capital's northern Kadhimiyah district for the Shi'ite religious festival.

In a separate attack on Wednesday in the mainly Shi'ite southern city of Hilla, police said two car bombs, including one detonated by a suicide bomber, exploded outside restaurants used by security forces, killing 22 people and wounding 38.

"When a minibus packed with policemen stopped near the restaurants, a car exploded near the bus," said Maitham Sahib, owner of a restaurant in Hilla near the blast. "It's heart breaking. It is just sirens, and screams of wounded people."

POLITICAL TENSIONS

Two more car bombs killed four people in the Shi'ite city of Balad, a car bomb in Kerbala killed 3 and wounded 17, and another car bomb in Haswa, 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad, killed one person, and wounded four.

Five soldiers were also killed by gunmen in an attack on an army checkpoint in the south of the capital, police said.

Wednesday's attacks came at a sensitive time.

On Sunday, at least six people were killed and 38 wounded when two mortar bombs struck a square packed with Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims in Baghdad's Kadhimiyah district.

Earlier this month, 26 people were killed and more than 190 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-rigged car outside a Shi'ite religious office in the capital.

Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack on the religious office.

Political tensions have been high in Iraq since the last American troops left in December, with the fragile government - split among Sunni-backed, Shi'ite and ethnic Kurdish blocs - feuding over their power-sharing accord.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is fending off attempts by Sunni, Kurdish and some Shi'ite rivals to organize a vote of no confidence against him. Critics accuse him of trying to consolidate his position and failing to fulfill promises to share power among the blocs.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Huge media interest is guaranteed for the first appearance in the dock of the 44-year-old, a former editor of two of Britain's top-selling newspapers who counts the upper echelons of the British establishment and senior politicians in her network of friends.

Those include Prime Minister David Cameron whose close relationship with Brooks and other figures in Murdoch's media empire will come under the microscope when he appears before a public inquiry into press ethics on Thursday.

Brooks is charged with concealing material from detectives carrying out a major inquiry into alleged criminal activities at News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch's News Corp where she was chief executive until last year.

Police say she schemed to remove boxes of archive records from its London headquarters, concealing material from detectives, and hiding documents, computers and other electronic equipment.

Brooks, her racehorse trainer husband Charlie, her secretary and three other staff from News International are due to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday to face charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Instantly recognisable for her mane of flame-red hair, she and her husband have already vigorously denied the charges and claimed she was being made a scapegoat. If found guilty, they face a probable jail term.

"I have grave doubts that my wife will ever get a fair trial, given the volume of biased commentary which she has been subject to," Charlie Brooks said.

The charges the group face are the first brought by detectives since they reopened an investigation in January 2011 into claims journalists at Murdoch's News of the World tabloid illegally accessed voicemails on mobile phones.

Officers are also examining if reporters bribed public officials including police officers to get stories.

Some 50 people have since been arrested, including many senior figures from the News of the World and News International.

FRENZY

Amid public anger at the scale of phone hacking which reached a frenzy last July when it was reported that reporters had illegally accessed the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, Murdoch closed the 168-year-old News of the World, one of the tabloids which Brooks used to edit.

He also had to withdraw a major takeover bid for lucrative TV group BSkyB while Brooks was forced to quit her job running News International.

Before that, she had been considered one of the most powerful women in Britain, and was particularly friendly with Cameron, who went to the exclusive Eton College school with her husband.

During day-long questioning at the inquiry into media standards last month, Brooks said she and Cameron had frequently exchanged text messages and that he would occasionally sign them off "LOL", by which he meant "lots of love".

Cameron has already had the embarrassment of seeing his former communications chief Andy Coulson being charged with perjury, after denying in court any knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World which he had also edited.

Both Coulson and Brooks are amongst those still being investigated by detectives over the phone hacking allegations and possible corruption offences, and could face further charges.

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

Longstanding tension between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas flared on Friday and the security forces have struggled to stem the worst communal violence in Myanmar since a reformist government replaced an oppressive junta last year.

A Reuters reporter in Sittwe, capital of the northwestern state of Rakhine, said soldiers and police with loudspeakers warned they would not tolerate people carrying weapons and anyone attempting to set fire to buildings would be dealt with.

In addition to the 21 dead, state media said that as of Monday, 21 people had been injured and 1,662 houses burnt down.

No fires were visible on Wednesday morning, when heavy rain was falling. Most shops were closed but people were slowly venturing out onto the streets.

President Thein Sein faces mounting international pressure to end the bloodshed in coastal Rakhine state and quell nationalist anger in the predominantly Buddhist country against the stateless Muslim Rohingyas before the violence spreads.

The Myanmar government regards Rohingyas as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. But Bangladesh has refused to grant them refugee status since 1992, when tens of thousands of them flooded into Bangladesh complaining of persecution by the Myanmar military.

In recent days, hundreds of Rohingyas have tried to flee in rickety boats to Bangladesh but its foreign minister, Dipu Moni, told reporters late on Tuesday Bangladesh would not take them in despite a request from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

"We are already overburdened with Myanmar Muslims who fled into this country over many years and we can take no more, under any circumstances," she said.

Major Shafiqur Rahman of the Bangladesh Border Guard told Reuters by phone that 110 Rohingyas in three boats had landed in Teknaf on the southern tip of the Bangladesh mainland in the early hours of Wednesday.

"They landed on our beach defying objections by the coastguard. We have detained them all, mostly women and children, and will push back later today," he said.

The two countries are separated in the area by a river that flows into the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladeshi officials said about 30 Rohingyas had managed to enter Bangladesh. Ten had been injured in the violence and one of them, a man aged about 70, had died of gunshot wounds in hospital. An official said three others were in a critical condition.

"LIKE A WAR ZONE"

The unrest undermines an image of stability in Myanmar and moves to end ethnic rebellions that persuaded the United States and Europe to suspend economic sanctions in the former Burma. Tourist arrivals and foreign investment, set to soar after the end of half a century of army rule, may also suffer.

Sittwe and nearby towns looked close to anarchy this week.

"Sittwe is like a war zone," Shwe Maung, a Muslim legislator for the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party for the town of Buthidaung, said late on Tuesday.

He accused police of allowing Buddhists to break a curfew and burn Muslim houses. Rakhine Buddhists have in turn blamed much of the arson on the Rohingya.

Rohingyas say their lineage in Rakhine dates back centuries.

Relations between the two communities have been uneasy for generations but tension flared last month after the gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman that was blamed on Muslims.

That led to the killing of 10 Muslims on June 3, when a Buddhist mob stopped a bus they were travelling on. The passengers had no connection to the murdered woman. State media said three Muslims are on trial for the woman's death.

Reports from Rakhine suggest the death toll since Friday is higher than the official figure. Shwe Maung, the Muslim legislator, had put the number at 50 in the village of Narzi alone by Tuesday.

The United States and European Union have urged calm to prevent a derailing of Myanmar's fragile reforms.

The crisis is likely to force Thein Sein, a former general, to confront an issue that human rights groups have criticized for years: the plight of thousands of Rohingyas who live along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh in abject conditions.

"Unless the government takes steps not just to end the violence but also lay the groundwork for protection of minority communities, there is a risk of the violence spreading," the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental research organization, said in a report published late on Tuesday.

"How the government handles this case will be a major test of the police and courts in a country that has just begun to emerge from an authoritarian past. It will also test the government's will and capacity to reverse a longstanding policy of discrimination toward the Muslim Rohingya."

The violence follows a year of dramatic political change, including the freeing of hundreds of political prisoners, the signing of peace deals with ethnic minority rebel groups and the holding of by-elections dominated by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party.

(Additional reporting by Anis Ahmed in Dhaka; Writing by Alan Rayould; Editing by Robert Birsel)