Hawaiian-born former sumo wrestler Konishiki admitted Thursday to a physical confrontation with a neighbor in a dispute over dog poo.

Konishiki, 47, now a popular television personality in Japan, said on his blog that he was trying to defend his wife over charges she had allowed her dog to foul on private property in Tokyo.

U.S. lawmakers rebuked Moscow's leadership Wednesday for "manipulating" recent elections, and urged legislation to blacklist any Russian believed responsible for rights violations from traveling to the United States.

At a U.S. Senate hearing focused on corruption and rule of law in Russia, days after tens of thousands of demonstrators marched charging electoral fraud, State Department officials said they recognized a "national awakening" among Russian citizens calling for accountability of their government.

Google on Wednesday targeted slavery and women's education in holiday season donations tallying $40 million.

The charity came in the form of grants to nonprofit groups or academic institutions supporting education, technology, or the fight against slavery, according to Shona Brown, a senior vice president at the Internet titan's Google.org philanthropic arm.

Intel on Wednesday formed a new unit devoted to making chips for smartphones and tablets that have become must-have gadgets in a post personal computer age.

Four units were combined into a Mobile and Communications Group headed by Hermann Eul and Mike Bell, whose background includes having worked on the iPhone at Apple, according to Intel spokesman Robert Manetta.

Italy's Fiat unveiled its new "Panda made in Pomigliano" on Wednesday at the southern Italian plant where workers last year were forced to accept tougher contracts to save their jobs.

"We answer sceptics, detractors and antagonists with facts," Fiat head Sergio Marchionne told journalists, boasting of a turn-around in productivity at Pomigliano, where production had shuddered to a near stand-still in 2008.

Reporters can now use Twitter, text messages and email in courtrooms in England and Wales without needing to ask permission, the head of the judiciary said Wednesday.

"Twitter as much as you like from today," Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge told journalists as he handed down new guidelines on using laptops and hand-held devices.

Syrian army deserters killed at least 27 soldiers and members of the security forces during clashes in the southern province of Daraa on Thursday, a rights group said.

The fighting broke out at dawn at checkpoints in three separate locations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation to freeze some Pakistan aid, slap harsh new sanctions on Iran, and endorse indefinite imprisonment of suspected terrorists.

Acting shortly after the White House dropped a threat to veto the bill, the Republican-led chamber voted 283-136 to approve the $662 billion Defense Authorization bill, which also sets high hurdles for closing Guantanamo Bay.

Syrian military commanders have ordered troops to indiscriminately shoot at unarmed protesters, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday based on interviews with former soldiers who defected.

The defectors named 74 military and intelligence officers "who allegedly ordered, authorized, or condoned widespread killings, torture, and unlawful arrests," the rights group said in a statement.

The first congress of the Syrian National Council, the opposition's most representative grouping, will open in the Tunisian capital on Friday, an official said.

The three-day meeting will be attended by SNC leader Burhan Ghalioun and about 200 other members, the outfit's Tunis representative Abdullah Terkmani said on Wednesday.