There are 17997 articles

  • Scores wounded in Sri Lanka blast

    At least 17 people have been wounded in a bomb attack on a packed train during rush-hour just outside Sri Lanka's capital, officials said. The bomb exploded on Wednesday between Colombo's Wellawatte and Dehiwela areas when the train was rolling past, Ranjith Gunasekera, a police spokesman, said. Doctors said 18 people were admitted to hospital on.. More

  • Iran's Khamenei labels Bush 'mad'

    Iran's supreme leader has reaffirmed his country's commitment to a peaceful nuclear programme, while attacking George Bush, the US president as "mentally ill". Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a ceremony honouring the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, that Tehran had no interest in building nuclear weapons. "Look.. More

  • Pakistani Taliban targeted Danes after cartoons: officials

    Pakistani officials said Tuesday an attack on the Danish embassy was likely a one-off linked to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and will not impact the new government's talks with the Taliban. Investigators believe Taliban militants based in a tribal region on the Afghan border were responsible for Monday's suicide attack, which killed at least.. More

  • World food summit blames trade barriers

    The United Nations urged a summit on the global food crisis on Tuesday to help stop the spread of starvation threatening nearly 1 billion people by lowering trade barriers and removing export bans. "Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders who are likely to disagree.. More

  • Israel must quit all Syrian land for peace: Assad

    Israel must be prepared to return all Syrian lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war as part of any peace deal between the two sides, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks published on Tuesday. Briefing editors of United Arab Emirates newspapers during a visit to the Gulf Arab state, Assad also said U.S. sponsorship would be essential.. More

  • McCain urges further Iran sanctions

    The US should impose tougher measures on Iran if it continues with its nuclear program, John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate and Arizona senator, has said. Speaking at the annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) in Washington on Monday, he said Iran's "continued pursuit of nuclear weapons".. More

  • UN urges action on food crisis

    The UN secretary-general has urged world leaders gathering at a summit on food security to make the "hard decisions" necessary to bring down soaring global food prices. "For years, falling food prices and rising production lulled the world into complacency," Ban Ki-moon said on the eve of the three-day UN Food and Agriculture Organization.. More

  • Mugabe food talks trip 'obscene'

    The presence of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe at a United Nations food summit in Rome is "obscene", Australia's foreign minister has said. "This is the person who has presided over the starvation of his people," said Stephen Smith. State television said Mr Mugabe was accompanied by his wife and senior government officials.. More

  • Nuclear inspectors to visit Syria

    The United Nations nuclear watchdog has said it will send a team of experts to investigate claims that Syria was building a nuclear reactor. Mohamed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, said on Monday that inspectors will visit the country on June 22-24. The Israeli military in September destroyed a building which.. More

  • Search for crashed chopper in China quake zone

    Thousands of soldiers scoured China's mountainous earthquake zone Monday for the wreckage of a military helicopter that was carrying injured quake survivors when it crashed at the weekend. Five crew members and 14 passengers were on board the army Mi-171 helicopter when it went down Saturday amid fog and turbulence in southwestern Sichuan province,.. More

  • Abbas and Olmert set for talks

    Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is due to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to discuss the US-sponsored peace negotiations before Olmdert visits Washington. However, the talks on Monday are likely to be dominated by Israel's decision to build hundreds of new settler homes on occupied land in east Jerusalem. The construction will.. More

  • Blast outside Danish embassy in Pakistan kills 4

    An apparent car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy in Pakistan's capital on Monday, killing at least four people and wounding dozens more, officials and witnesses said. The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater more than three feet deep in the road in front of the embassy. Shattered glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicles.. More

  • UN mission to study African wars

    The UN Security Council is on a mission to Africa to look at the continent's wars and see how they might be ended. The mission is due to have its first discussions with Somalia's government and its opponents, then go to Sudan and several other countries at war. It has decided it is too dangerous to hold its Somali talks on Somali soil - they will.. More

  • Brown leadership speculation "nonsense"

    Two leading government ministers sprang to the defence of embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday, eager to quash speculation about a leadership challenge as his poll ratings tumble. Just one year after taking over from Tony Blair, Brown has been beset by a barrage of problems -- voters are punishing him over the flagging economy, soaring fuel.. More

  • Israel deports freed Hezbollah "spy" to Lebanon

    Israel freed and then deported to Lebanon on Sunday a convicted Hezbollah "spy" while the Shiite militant group handed over the remains of Israeli soldiers, sparking talk of a wider exchange. Lebanese-born Nessim Nisr was released after more than six years in prison on charges of collaborating with Hezbollah. He was handed over to the International.. More