BOGOTA (Reuters) - A new peace accord between Colombia's government and Marxist FARC rebels will be signed on Thursday and sent to Congress for approval, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday, bringing a formal end to the 52-year civil war ever closer.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's foreign minister Murray McCully said he discussed the disputed South China Sea with a "charming" Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte during an informal meeting. McCully said the pair had a wide ranging discussion late on Tuesday but declined to comment on whether Duterte's controversial drugs crackdown was discussed.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea and Japan signed a military intelligence pact on Wednesday to share sensitive information on the threat posed by North Korea's missile and nuclear activities, the South's defense ministry said.

By Joyce Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean prosecutors raided the offices of Samsung Group on Wednesday, a prosecution official said, after media reports of alleged links with a confidante of President Park Geun-hye who has been indicted in an influence-peddling scandal. Prosecutors also raided South Korea's largest pension fund, the National Pension Service (NPS), an NPS spokeswoman said.

By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - As the chorus grows louder for South Korean President Park Geun-hye to resign over a corruption scandal, a power vacuum is weighing on her administration, leaving her political survival in doubt and its vulnerable economy exposed to political shocks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An air strike carried out by the United States last week killed Abu Afghan Al-Masri, a "senior al Qaeda leader," near Sarmada, Syria, on Nov. 18, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said on Tuesday. Cook, speaking during a press briefing, told reporters that Al-Masri, an Egyptian, originally joined al Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to it's Syrian affiliate.

By Yuka Obayashi and William Mallard TOKYO (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is giving shelter to more than 3,000 people who have fled Myanmar after fighting between the government and rebels, and stray shells have fallen inside Chinese territory causing minor damage but no deaths, state media said on Tuesday.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Authorities are investigating a Shanghai-based fried chicken chain for possible violations of social order over its sexually suggestive name - "Call a Chick" - and menu items, the Shanghai Daily reported on Tuesday. Chick, or chicken, is slang for prostitute in Chinese.

By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin TAL AFAR AIR BASE, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite militias were massing troops on Monday to cut remaining supply routes to Mosul, Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq, closing in on the road that links the Syrian and Iraqi parts of its self-declared caliphate. Five weeks into the U.S.