There are 17997 articles

  • Obama vows to shut Guantanamo

    Barack Obama has promised to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The US president-elect, in a television interview aired on Sunday, also pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq as part of rebuilding "America's moral stature". "I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that," Obama.. More

  • G20 agree on financial action plan

    Leaders from across the world have agreed to work together to restore economic growth and change the world's financial system. In a statement issued at the end of a summit in the US capital on Saturday, the G20 leaders, whose countries account for 85 per cent of the world economy, promised "vigorous efforts" to stabilize the global financial.. More

  • Iraq cabinet passes US forces pact

    Iraq's cabinet has approved a security pact which allows about 150,000 US troops to remain in the country for another three years, a government spokesman has confirmed. The draft Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) was passed by the cabinet on Sunday and will now be sent to parliament for their approval. All but one of the 28 cabinet members present.. More

  • Gaza fighters die in Israeli raid

    Four Palestinian fighters have been killed in an Israeli attack in northern Gaza, local medics and the Israeli military have said. "There was an aerial attack against a [rocket] launching squad in the northern Gaza Strip," an Israeli military spokesman said. Medics from Shifa hospital said they had received the bodies of four members.. More

  • Gas blasts kill Romanian miners

    Two gas explosions at a colliery in south Romania have killed 12 miners and at least eight others are being treated for serious burns, officials say. Four were killed when they went to the aid of those caught in the first blast at the mine in the town of Petrila. A union representative said conditions underground were very difficult as the mine.. More

  • Several die in Iraq car bomb blast

    A car bomb has killed 11 people and wounded 36 others in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, Iraqi police and the US military say. The explosion, the latest in a series that have rocked the country in weeks, took place outside a car dealership on Saturday. Tal Afar is in Iraq's volatile Nineveh province. The town lies halfway between the Syrian.. More

  • Gaza blast kills Palestinians

    Two Palestinians have been killed in an explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics and local witnesses say. The Popular Resistance Committees group said that the explosion in Beit Hanoun on Saturday had been caused by an Israeli air raid, but a military spokesman denied any attack had been carried out. "We haven't carried out.. More

  • Scores die in Burkina Faso accident

    At least 59 people have been killed in western Burkina Faso after a bus carrying 75 passengers and a lorry collided and caught fire, an official said. The bus was en route from Koudougou in the centre-west of the country when the accident occurred on Saturday. "We have recorded 59 deaths ... So far the firemen have managed to bring out 41.. More

  • Sri Lanka army 'takes key town'

    The Sri Lankan military says it has captured the strategically important northern town of Pooneryn from Tamil Tiger separatists. After months of heavy fighting in the north, the defense ministry said on Saturday that government forces now controlled the entire western coast of the Indian Ocean island. "Troops of army Task Force One have entered.. More

  • European Islamic media network in the works

    The heads of the two main Muslim news and networking Internet sites in France and Spain hosted a meeting Friday in Madrid to discuss the creation of a European-wide Islamic media network. "We hope to create a better understanding of the Muslim faith and provide information on Islam at a European level," the director of French Muslim news.. More

  • Blockaded Gaza 'faces disaster'

    The UK-based aid agency Oxfam has warned of catastrophe for Gaza and nearby areas of Israel if a truce agreed last June is not maintained. Oxfam called on world leaders to do everything they could to break Israel's blockade of Gaza and urged Israel to resume supplies without delay. Israel has shut border crossings in response to rocket attacks.. More

  • Eurozone 'in its first recession'

    The eurozone has officially slipped into recession after European Union (EU) statisticians estimated the economy of its 15-member states shrank by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter. Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, released the figures on Friday. The fall follows a 0.2 per cent economic contraction in April-June. Two consecutive.. More

  • 'US drone' fires on Pakistan target

    At least 12 people have been killed in a missile strike said to have been carried out by a US drone in a Pakistani tribal region. The raid is thought to have killed pro-Taliban fighters, five of them foreigners, Pakistani officials said on Friday. Previous bombing raids by the US, in which civilians have died, have been condemned by the Pakistani.. More

  • Obama aide in 'anti-Arab' row

    Rahm Emanuel, US president-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, has apologized to an Arab-American group for comments made by his father that disparaged Arabs. Benjamin Emanuel was reported as telling an Israeli newspaper about his son last week: "Obviously, he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? "What is.. More

  • Fighters seize town near Mogadishu

    Somalia's Shabab group has taken over the port of Elasha, 18km southwest of the Somali capital. The Shabab briefly occupied three small towns on the outskirts of Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Thursday, before fleeing as Ethiopian forces headed south from the city to confront them. The Shabab is the armed wing of the Islamic Courts' Union, which in.. More