There are 17997 articles

  • US navy alleges Iran 'provocation'

    The US navy says it has been harassed and provoked by Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz in an incident the White House called a "serious provocation". Officials from the Pentagon said on Monday that Iranian speedboats surrounded three US navy ships over the weekend, radioing a threat to blow them up. "We urge the Iranians to refrain from such.. More

  • Abbas issues settlement warning

    Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, says he intends to ask George Bush to curb Israel's settlements in the West Bank when the US president visits the Middle East this week. Bush has called the expansion of Jewish settlements an "impediment" and said he would discuss it with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, during his trip. "We wish for.. More

  • New round of W Sahara talks begins

    Moroccan officials are meeting the pro-independence Polisario Front in suburban New York for a third set of UN-sponsored talks over the disputed Western Sahara. Two rounds of negotiations last year, held at the same secluded Greentree estate in Manhasset, produced little progress in ending the 32 year-conflict. Closed-door discussions were to be.. More

  • Kenya opposition open to coalition

    Kenya's opposition leader has signalled he is willing to share power with the government he accuses of rigging elections. But Raila Odinga, the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODC), also blamed government militias for fuelling violence in the aftermath of the polls and called for mass rallies - a move that threatens more bloodshed. Weary.. More

  • Pakistani militants kill 8 tribal leaders

    Suspected militants killed eight tribal leaders involved in efforts to broker a cease-fire between security forces and fighters in northwestern Pakistan, a security official said Monday. The men were shot in separate attacks late Sunday and early Monday in South Waziristan, a mountainous region close to Afghanistan where al-Qaida and Taliban.. More

  • Israel 'escalates' miltary actions

    Israel's prime minister has vowed to step up attacks on Palestinians firing rockets from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Ehud Olmert's comments at a meeting of the his cabinet on Sunday came as at least four Palestinians, including two civilians, were killed in an Israeli raid. Olmert told the cabinet that Ehud Barak, the defense minister, had ordered.. More

  • Soldiers killed in Iraqi bombing

    A suicide bomber has killed eight Iraqis, including soldiers, in an attack on Army Day celebrations. The blast struck outside the offices of a non-governmental organization in the eastern Baghdad suburb of Karrada, police and witnesses said. It took place during a ceremony to give gifts to Iraqi soldiers who have been fighting the insurgency. A.. More

  • Arab League backs Lebanon plan

    Lebanon's parliamentary majority leader has welcomed an Arab draft plan to end the constitutional crisis in Lebanon, after Syria threw its weight behind it, according to diplomatic and political sources. Saad al-Hariri said on Sunday: "The declaration by the Arab foreign ministers presents the Lebanese with a new chance to elect a consensus president.. More

  • Kenya faces health crisis

    A devastating health emergency could occur in Kenya if more humanitarian aid is not delivered to those displaced by the country’s political violence. The warning from the British charity Merlin came on Sunday as government and aid groups struggled to deliver aid to many of the estimated quarter of a million internally displaced people. More than.. More

  • Arab League sets out Lebanon plan

    Arab League foreign ministers have backed Lebanon's army chief, Gen Michel Suleiman, as the next president of the politically divided country. The move was agreed at a consultative meeting in Egypt's capital, Cairo. It comes ahead of Sunday's crisis talks of the 22-member body, called to deal with Lebanon's political impasse. The dispute between.. More

  • Palestinian killed in Israeli raid

    One member of an armed Palestinian group has been killed and four others wounded in an Israeli air raid on the north of the Gaza Strip. Witnesses and medical sources said the man, aged around 30, died after Israeli aircraft fired air-to-ground missiles east of Jabaliya early on Sunday. The five members of the Popular Resistance Committees had been.. More

  • Iraqi soldiers shoot US troops

    Two American soldiers have been deliberately shot dead by a colleague in an Iraqi unit, the US and Iraqi militaries have announced. The two soldiers were on a joint US-Iraq patrol in Mosul in northern Iraq when they were killed last week. It is the first time such a killing has been confirmed by the two forces. "Two US soldiers killed during a.. More

  • Hamas rejects Israel talks offer

    Khaled Meshaal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, has said the group rejected a European offer for an indirect meeting with Israel to discuss an end to the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Speaking at a rally in Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Friday to mark Hamas' 20th anniversary, Meshaal said that "some Europeans have offered us to meet indirectly.. More

  • Hezbollah sets resolution terms

    The Lebanese opposition group Hezbollah has said openly that it will not allow a president to be elected unless it gets a third of the cabinet seats. This would give Hezbollah and its allies a veto over key decisions. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, blamed the US for obstructing a solution to Lebanon's political crisis by opposing such a.. More

  • Huckabee and Obama take Iowa wins

    Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama have won the Iowa caucuses - the first nominating contest of the 2008 US presidential election. Mr Huckabee won for the Republicans, defeating Mitt Romney. At the Democratic caucuses, Mr Obama won by a clear margin, defeating John Edwards, who edged Hillary Clinton into third place. The Iowa caucuses can give big.. More