World/Nation

• Congress deal restores $63B in spending cuts

WASHINGTON - Shedding gridlock, key members of Congress reached a modest budget agreement Tuesday to restore about $63 billion in automatic spending cuts from programs ranging from parks to the Pentagon and eliminate the threat of another partial government shutdown early next year.

The increases would be offset by a variety of spending reductions and higher fees elsewhere in the budget totaling $85 billion over a decade, enough for a largely symbolic cut of more than $20 billion in the nation's debt, now $17 trillion and growing.

Federal civilian and military workers, airline travelers and health care providers who treat Medicare patients would bear much of the cost.

Significantly for Democrats, they failed in their bid to include an extension of benefits for workers unemployed longer than 26 weeks. The program expires on Dec. 28, when payments will be cut off for an estimated 1.3 million individuals.

Bipartisan approval is expected in both houses in the next several days, despite grumbling from liberals over the omission of the unemployment extension and even though tea party-aligned groups have already begun pushing Republican conservatives to oppose it.

• Police attempt to clear barricades in Ukraine capital

KIEV, Ukraine - Security forces clashed with protesters as they began tearing down opposition barricades and tents set up in the center of the Ukrainian capital early Wednesday, in an escalation of the weeks-long standoff threatening the leadership of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Several thousand police in riot gear used their shields to push back protesters and successfully removed some of their tents and barricades. But thousands of protesters, their ranks swelling through the night, put up fierce resistance for hours, shoving back at the police lines to keep them away from the center of the protest camp on Independence Square in downtown Kiev.

The protests began in late November when Yanukovych backed away from a pact that would deepen the former Soviet republic's economic ties with the 28-nation European Union - a pact that surveys showed was supported by nearly half the country's people. The agreement would make Ukraine more Western-oriented and would represent a significant loss of face for Russia, which has either controlled or heavily influenced Ukraine for centuries.

Demonstrators, waving EU and Ukrainian flags and singing the national anthem, shouted "Shame! Shame!" and "We will stand." Scuffles broke out between police and opposition lawmakers, one of whom laid down on the snow trying to block a vehicle from advancing on the camp. An Orthodox priest sang prayers, and one protester undressed to his waist in the frigid air, got down on his knees and shouted "Stop this ... We are one people!"

• Obama among many who honor Nelson Mandela

JOHANNESBURG - Amid cheers and song for the prisoner who became peacemaker, President Barack Obama energized tens of thousands of spectators and nearly 100 visiting heads of state Tuesday with a plea for the world to emulate Nelson Mandela, "the last great liberator of the 20th century."

Obama's eulogy was the rhetorical highlight of a memorial service in which South Africans celebrated Mandela's life with singing and dancing, often during dignitaries' speeches. They also booed their own president and were chided by a top government official who said: "Let's not embarrass ourselves."

Lashing rain lent a freewheeling aspect to the memorial, with people taking shelter in the stadium's wide hallways, where they sang anti-apartheid anthems from the 1970s and 1980s. Foul weather kept many away, and the 95,000-capacity stadium was only two-thirds full.

Obama implored people to embrace Mandela's universal message of peace and justice, comparing the South African leader to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. Mandela spent 27 years in prison under a racist regime, and promoted forgiveness and reconciliation when he was finally freed.

• Thai democracy enters dangerous new crossroads

BANGKOK - Protesters waging a surreal political fight to oust Thailand's elected prime minister are trying to establish what amounts to a parallel government - one complete with "security volunteers" to replace the police, a foreign policy of their own and a central committee that has already begun issuing audacious orders.

Among the most brazen: a demand Tuesday that caretaker premier Yingluck Shinawatra be prosecuted for "insurrection," and another calling on the public to "closely monitor" her family's movements.

Leading academics have slammed the scheme as undemocratic and unconstitutional. Critics have called its leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, delusional. But the ex-lawmaker's bid to seize power is backed by many in Bangkok and could become reality if the military or the judiciary intervenes, as they have in the past. Analysts say this southeast Asian nation is at a dangerous new crossroads that could drag on, and end with more bloodshed.

- The Associated Press