| You have searched for: regions |
| |
 |
|
"Christmas greetings from the banana republic called Belgium."
The text message arrived on this correspondent's mobile phone on Monday, sent by a Belgian friend not normally characterized by her interest in politics.
And it put into words a widespread feeling of weariness and deja vu as the country found itself looking...
 |
|
|
A suicide bomber killed two Afghan intelligence agents and three civilians in eastern Afghanistan, while more than 15 Taliban militants were killed by Afghan police and a NATO airstrike in the southern region, official said Friday.
The bomber detonated his explosive-packed vest in the main market in Zazi Maidan district of...
|
|
|
Russia's foreign minister added his voice to the controversy over South Ossetia's status hopes on Thursday. Georgia's separatist province, he said, has no intention of joining Russia, news agencies reported.
Sergei Lavrov interrupted a press conference in Poland, where he was discussing US missile defence plans, to clarify Moscow's...
|
|
|
Simmering anger with the Indian government and its security forces over a land row in the Kashmir Valley has sparked a larger movement that has seen thousands of Kashmiri Muslims take to the streets to demand "azadi," or freedom, in non-violent protests over the past two weeks.
Protestor Shakeel Ahmed, a university student,...
|
|
|
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday recognized the independence of Georgia's rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
"Russia calls on other nations to recognize their independence. It is not an easy choice, but it is the only way to protect the lives of civilians," Medvedev said in a televized statement after...
|
|
|
Russia's upper house of parliament voted unanimously to recognize Georgia's rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Monday.
After an emergency meeting of the house, lawmakers issued a statement to President Dmitry Medvedev urging recognition of the two provinces that are ethnically separate from Georgia.
The statement said...
|
|
|
Russia's upper house of parliament voted unanimously to recognize the independence of Georgia's rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Monday.
In an emergency meeting of the Federation Council, lawmakers issued an appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev urging recognition of the two provinces that are ethnically separate from...
|
|
|
Russian combat forces began a slow withdrawal from Georgia on Friday but were still operating road checkpoints deep in the country despite a pledge to leave by the end of the day.
The Russian general staff said that troops were "in the final stage of pulling back," but they would continue to hold buffer zones and maintain...
|
|
|
Russia's army on Wednesday continued its occupation of two enclaves in Georgia as Kremlin officials claimed they would accelerate what they said was an already in-progress withdrawal.
President Dmitry Medvedev promised his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that all but a 500-strong contingent of peace keepers would leave Georgian...
|
|
|
The head of NATO is "seriously concerned" by the outbreak of fighting in Georgia and calls on all sides to return to the negotiating table, a statement released in Brussels said Friday.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is "seriously concerned about the events that are taking place in the Georgian region of...
|
|
|
 Hurricane Dolly formed in the Caribbean is heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border and may strengthen into a Category 2 storm before reaching the coast around midday, forecasters predicted. According to the National Hurricane Center’s Web site, early this morning the hurricane’s center was an estimated 55 miles (90 kilometers)...
|
|
|
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the architect
of the genocidal Srebrenica massacre, was captured on Monday evening, after
more than a decade on the run, the country’s president and the U.N. tribunal
announced.
Karadzic is suspected of engineering several mass murders
which include the deadly siege of Sarajevo and the...
|
|
|
 U.S.
and Afghan troops have left an isolated village in eastern Afghanistan where militants murdered nine U.S. soldiers
and injured a dozen more on Sunday, officials said on Wednesday.
According to BBC, a statement informed that the base had
been provisional and that customary patrols in the region would be upheld.
However, local...
|
|
|
 A suicide car bomb outside the Danish embassy in the Pakistani capital Islamabad killed eight people and wounded many others on Monday and al-Qaida claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks.A statement of al-Qaida, which was posted on a Web site frequently used by Islamic militants, said Monday’s attack was carried out in order...
|
|
|
On Friday, Russia claimed to have captured a Georgian spy
of Russian citizenship, whose main goal was to destabilize the region in Southern Russia. This represents the proof that the
Georgian secret services are involved in “disruptive terrorist activities” in North Caucasus, as Federal Security Service (FSB)
informed.
It is...
|
|
|
the 132nd day of 2008 with 234 to follow. This is Mother's Day. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine, in 1854;...
|
|
|
The U.S. administration
criticized Russia on Tuesday
for what it named a series of “provocative actions” in recent weeks in the
conflict between Moscow’s former republic of Georgia and its breakaway region of
Abkhazia, the Associated Press reports.
The White House blamed Russia
of escalating tensions over Abkhazia by...
|
|
|
 According to new satellite images, the once treacherous Northwest
Passage in the Arctic Ocean, impracticable
by even the largest ships and ice breakers, has shrunk to the lowest level on
record, making the ice so thin that it may yet become a navigable shipping
channel.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has been tracking various...
|
|
|
 The International Security Assistance Force wasn’t very pleased when Afghan authorities communicated the death toll from the latest airstrikes, saying “less than a dozen” civilians died during Friday’s air raids. Major John Thomas, ISAF spokesman said “significant” fatalities were recorded among the civilian population, but the figures...
|
|
| |
 |
|
There's an old saying among economists: "When the US catches a cold, the rest of the world catches pneumonia."
"But nobody says what happens when the US catches pneumonia," said Ammar Siamwalla, a respected Thai economist. "You don't catch a cold, but I don't know what happens."
That indeed is...
|
|
|
Four Islamic militants were killed Wednesday in a missile strike by a suspected pilotless US aircraft, while five Taliban and four civilians were killed in actions by local security forces in north-west Pakistan, officials and media reports said.
One of the two missiles fired presumably by a US drone hit a house in the Jani Khel...
|
|
|
Egypt and India have decided to rekindle old ties in tune with contemporary realities, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday after delegation-level talks with visiting President Hosni Mubarak.
The two countries agreed to establish a strategic dialogue at the foreign ministry level. Six agreements on issues ranging from trade to...
|
|
|
At least four people were killed, nearly 60 others wounded and more than 1,500 buildings were damaged after a powerful undersea earthquake struck off the Indonesia's North Sulawesi early Monday, officials said.
The 7.7-magnitude quake struck at 1:02 am (1702 GMT Sunday) with its epicenter in the sea about 138 kilometres north-west of...
|
|
|
A Japanese journalist and his Afghan assistant were shot and wounded on Friday in a kidnap attempt near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, while security forces killed at least four rebels in an adjoining north-western district, police said.
Motoki Yotsukura, a reporter with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, and his Afghan colleague Abdul...
|
|
|
A Japanese journalist and his Afghan facilitator were wounded on Friday when their vehicle was fired upon in an apparent kidnap attempt in Pakistan's volatile north-west, police said.
Travelling in a chauffeur-driven car the two were ambushed just over a kilometre outside Peshawar city, the capital of North West Frontier...
|
|
|
A Japanese journalist and his Afghan facilitator were wounded on Friday when their vehicle was fired upon in an apparent kidnap attempt in Pakistan's volatile north-west, police said.
Travelling in a chauffeur-driven car the two were ambushed just over a kilometre outside Peshawar city, the capital of North West Frontier...
|
|
|
Four soldiers and eight insurgents were killed on Wednesday in continuing clashes between the military and Islamist militants in north-western Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said.
Government troops killed at least eight rebels in intense gunfights in the restive valley of Swat where security forces are battling followers...
|
|
|
Four soldiers and eight insurgents were killed on Wednesday in continuing clashes between the military and Islamist militants in north-western Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said.
Government troops killed at least eight rebels in intense gunfights in the restive valley of Swat where security forces are battling followers...
|
|
|
As celebrations erupted in many parts of the world over the victory of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people in Pakistan, a key US ally in the fight against terrorism, remained generally indifferent and even apprehensive.
"What difference does it make for us? His victory can be good for America, perhaps for many...
|
|
|
Many young women in Myanmar's (Burma's) Irrawaddy delta region have stopped wearing their hair traditionally long, word goes.
Too many of them died in the metre-high floods brought on by Cyclone Nargis, because their hair got entangled in tree branches, or were strangled by their own hair as it wrapped around their neck.
Whether...
|
|
|
Islamabad on Monday asked the new head of US central command, General David Petraeus, to halt airstrikes inside Pakistan, saying these were harming its efforts to fight international terrorism.
"Continuing drone attacks on our territory, which result in loss of precious lives and property, are counterproductive and difficult to...
|
|
|
Taiwan Friday opened its 2008 Taipei International Travel Fair with the aim of attracting more foreign and Chinese tourists.
Sixty-two countries and regions have set up 1,206 booths at the four-day fair with Chinese exhibitors occupying 256 booths, nearly four times more than the second-largest exhibitor, Japan, with 69.
China...
|
|
|
Five children and two German soldiers were killed Monday in a suicide bombing near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, the governor of Kunduz province said.
Two other children who were playing nearby and two German soldiers were also wounded, Engineer Mohammad Omar said.
The governor said the attacker on a bicycle blew...
|
|
|
Chinese organizers of a culture show next year in the German city of Frankfurt said on Thursday that Taiwan would be welcome to take part it the effort to promote new books written in Chinese.
Every year, one nation attends the Frankfurt Book Fair as guest of honour, bringing a retinue of authors and musicians to drum up interest from...
|
|
|
President Ilham Aliyev is all but set to maintain his rule over post-Soviet Azerbaijan in Wednesday's elections as Russia and US continue to compete for his favour in the oil-rich Caspian state.
With Aliyev's only real opposition boycotting the vote, it is a forgone conclusion that the son of Azerbaijan's former strongman leader will...
|
|
|
Less than six hours after a helicopter drops a combined US and Afghan army patrol by the mountain border with Pakistan, Islamic insurgents surround and pound the unit into disarray.
The surprise attack from forested slopes around the troops' positions lasts 20 minutes, during which they are pinned down and barely able to hit back,...
|
|
|
At least 11 people, including four children, were killed Thursday in two bomb attacks targeting police in Pakistan's capital and the restive North West Frontier Province (NWFP), officials said.
Five officers were injured when a suicide car bomber blew himself up inside the police headquarters in Islamabad.
The attacker...
|
|
|
More than 30 militants were killed in various clashes with Afghan and international forces across Afghanistan in recent days, military sources said Thursday.
Additionally, 10 civilians were killed by suspected gunfire from Taliban militants.
In the latest incident, eight Taliban militants, including their district level commander,...
|
|
|
At least nine civilians, including women and children, were killed Thursday in clashes between Taliban rebels and security forces, while a compound used by militants was destroyed in Pakistan's troubled Swat district, media reports and officials said.
The civilians died when mortar shells hit their houses in several areas of Matta...
|
|
|
Pakistani lawmakers were set Wednesday to receive a rare briefing from the country's new military intelligence chief on threats posed by Taliban and al-Qaeda militants based in mountainous tribal regions and the spread of Islamic militancy to settled areas.
Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was appointed director general of...
|
|
|
The Afghan government began voter registration Monday ahead of a presidential election slated for autumn 2009 despite the country's worsening security situation as it battles a Taliban-led insurgency.
The Independent Election Commission said it started the first phase of the registration process in 14 central and eastern provinces,...
|
|
|
Taiwan is to send a large delegation to China later this month to encourage mainland Chinese to visit the island.
The delegation, led by Janice Lai, who is in charge of Taiwan's tourism portfolio, consists of some 200 travel agents, the Tourism Bureau confirmed.
The delegation is scheduled to depart on October 13 and will...
|
|
|
A bomb blast in central Yangon Thursday morning injured seven people, witnesses said.
The blast was near the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) which is near the Sule Pagoda. All seven injured were reportedly men and taken to hospital.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. Outside of the fighting with...
|
|
|
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday left Islamabad to attend the 63rd UN General Assembly session, a day after the country's worst terrorist attack took place in the city, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 250 more.
Zardari is also expected to meet US President George W Bush in New York on Tuesday to discuss...
|
|
|
Afghan commandos and US-led coalition forces killed two militants and arrested six others, including a Taliban commander, in an eastern town close to Kabul, the US military said Friday.
The combined forces conducted a raid on the house of a Taliban commander and his associates in Surobi district, some 50 kilometres east of Kabul city,...
|
|
|
At least 15 people were injured in a bomb attack in India's north-eastern state of Assam on Thursday, hours after the government said it was considering tougher laws to combat attacks by militant groups.
A bomb planted on a bicycle exploded near a government office in Assam's Chirang district, some 230 kilometres west of the state...
|
|
|
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday tried to lessen military tensions with Pakistan as he met the country's senior military and civilian leadership.
During his visit, Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded Taliban militant positions in the country's lawless tribal areas along the...
|
|
|
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the US ambassador, acting out of solidarity with his embattled Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales.
US Ambassador Patrick Duddy had to leave the country within the next 72 hours, Chavez said Thursday night in a televised speech. At the same time, the leftist populist president recalled...
|
|
|
 Sichuan, a town in the south of China, was shook by an earthquake of 6.1 magnitudes on Saturday. Rescue crews headed to the scene on Sunday to find 22 people dead and hundreds of injured people. The earthquake killed 17 people in Sichuan and 5 others in Yunnan, a near province.The China Earthquake Administration put the death toll at 25...
|
|
|
Kabul (dpa) - Almost a dozen Taliban militants were killed in a fight with US-led coalition forces in south-eastern Paktika province, the US military claimed Friday.
In a bid to disrupt militant activities, the combined forces searched compounds in Bermel district of the province on Thursday, the statement said.
The militants...
|
|
|
Iran warned the United States over interfering in the Caucasus crisis, ISNA news agency reported Monday.
"Powers outside the (Caucasus) region should not seek excuses for tensions and instability in the crisis area," ISNA quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying.
"Their destiny in the Caucasus would...
|
|
|
More than 62 people died and thousands were affected as malaria epidemics broke out after heavy monsoon rains in India's central and northern regions, media reports said Saturday.
Health officials told the NDTV television that more than 50 people died of malaria over the past three weeks in the Shivpuri district of central Indian...
|
|
|
 At least four civilians were killed and 25 others injured
when gunmen ambushed a crowded passenger bus in Sri Lanka’s deep south on Friday,
according to army officials.
The incident took place in the southern town of Buttala, 240km
south-east of the capital, Colombo,
considerably far from the regular struggle regions in the...
|
|
|
Mongolian media reported that at least four people have been
killed in the brutal disputes that took place in capital Ulan Bator, as a result of the alleged
electoral fraud.
According to BBC, approximately 130 police officials and
civilians were injured in the protests and hundreds of other activists have
been arrested.
Late...
|
|
|
Southern India was
conquered by the main federal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which won the state assembly elections. This is the party’s first victory
in this area of the country.
The election commission announced
today that the BJP won 110 seats, almost half of a total of 224-member
assembly, three votes...
|
|
|
Cyclone Nargis left behind tears,
ashes and starving people. The chaos started on May 2, when the fearful
hurricane devastated the south side of Myanmar before vanishing the
second day. The nation’s main regions, around Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon, were left infertile. The power of the cyclone
rose from combining the 121 mph wind with...
|
|
|
 Twelve people were reportedly killed while
more than 34,000 were displaced after Typhoon Halong hit the northern Phillippines
on Monday, about half of them pinned down by fallen trees or hit by flying
debris in the provinces of Pangasinan, La Union and Zambales, the National
Disaster Coordinating Council reported.
One of the...
|
|
|
 The clashes between Indian security forces and Islamic
militants killed six people in Kashmir. Four
of them were civilians and one was a news photographer.
In the first incident in the Indian-controlled Kashmir, soldiers confronted a group of gunmen who opened
fire, killing two civilians inside of a house and wounding two others,...
|
|
|
 29 ethnic Tamil rebels and one government soldier were
killed in separate incidents across Sri Lanka, the military said
Friday.
The conflict erupted Thursday along the front lines in the
Vavuniya, Manna, Jaffna
and Welioya regions, the military added.
Six Tamil Tiger rebels were killed when the army destroyed
three bunkers...
|
|
|
 The Prince of Wales’ spokesman admitted Prince Charles would
meet the Dalai Lama when he visits Britain in May, the Associated Press reports. Yesterday,
Britain’s
Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed his desire to meet the exiled spiritual
leader of the Tibetans. China’s
foreign ministry claimed he was...
|
|
|
 The Turkish military have
announced a land incursion in the northern Iraq, which targets Kurdish rebels.
The operation started Thursday night, after two months of air and artillery
bombardment. More than 10,000 troops have been sent across the border, in Iraq to take
part in the operation.
U. S. officials have confirmed...
|
|
|
 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejected a US plan to
allow the CIA expand its operations in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan where
al-Qaeda and the Taliban are active, officials said.
According to The New York Times, two top US intelligence
chiefs secretly met with Pakistan’s leader earlier this month and presented...
|
|
|
 Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf warned that foreign troops would not be accepted on Pakistani soil and their presence could be seen as a threat.The Pakistani leader said US security forces will not be brought in to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban in tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.Musharraf issued the warning Friday in a speech...
|
|
|
 Landslides and flash floods triggered by heavy downpours left more than
100 dead or missing Wednesday on Indonesia's densely populated Java
island, officials and local media said.
More than 12 hours of incessant rains triggered landslides and
flash floods in a number of districts of Central and East Java
provinces, officials...
|
|
|
 Muslim militants who held five worshippers hostage inside a mosque in
India-administered Kashmir released two hostages after protracted
negotiations on Monday, officials said.
Local police said militants belonging to the Hizbul Mujahideen
outfit, who were on the run, had taken the locals hostage in the mosque
in southern Kulgam on...
|
|
|
 At least 34 people were killed and more than 100 injured in clashes
between rival Sunni and Shia muslim groups in north-west Pakistan,
officials said Saturday.
The running battles broke out after Friday prayers in Parachinar, a
tribal region near the Afghan border, when gunmen opened fire on a
Sunni mosque injuring two people, the...
|
|
|
 Much feared Typhoon Wipha hit the south coast of Shanghai early Wednesday
afternoon, flooding streets and fields and causing massive transport disruptions.
Although believed to be the strongest typhoon to hit shanghai in the past decade,
only one man was killed by electrocution during a power surge.
Shanghai, China's biggest city,...
|
|
|
 Typhoon Sepat hit the south coast of China on Sunday,
forcing about one million people to flee from their homes. Also, the typhoon
generated a tornado that caused the death of 13 people and destroyed dozens of buildings.
China's Zhejiang Province was severely smashed by the
tornado that smashed 156 houses and injured 60 people,...
|
|
|
 A massive flooding caused by heavy rain that reportedly has left hundreds of people dead or missing and swamped tens of thousands of hectares of farmland and destroyed more than 30,000 homes forced North Korea to seek international help according to a U.N. aid agency spokesman.Paul Risley, Asia spokesman with the U.N. World Food...
|
|
| |
 |
|
City managers in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Tuesday began energy conservation measures because of falling supplies of natural gas, officials at the power company Kievenergo said.
Kiev residents, for their part, were resorting to tried and true methods of beating the cold, as yet another gas war with Russia and a vicious cold snap...
|
|
|
The NATO general who oversees anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan recommended Wednesday that the West seek to divide the Taliban and enter negotiations with its moderates.
Egon Ramms, who is a four-star German general, told the German weekly magazine Stern it was increasingly easy to differentiate between militant non-Afghan...
|
|
|
Belarus could back Moscow's recognition of Georgia's two breakaway regions as independent in exchange for privileged prices on Russian gas, a Russian newspaper reported Monday.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was due in Moscow on Monday for talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.
The Kremlin on Monday said...
|
|
|
Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme faced growing calls to quit Thursday after his office was accused of trying to influence a court ruling on the sale of the country's troubled Fortis bank.
"Leterme wobbles" read the front-page headline of leading Flemish daily De Standaard.
"Leterme torpedos himself" said the...
|
|
|
The Russian and Georgian delegations arrived Wednesday afternoon at the United Nations office in Geneva to begin their third round of talks since they went to war in the summer.
The talks are expected to focus on refugees, displaced people and security in the region.
Also expected to attend the meetings are representatives from the...
|
|
|
A British soldier, two Afghan policemen and five militants were killed in separate clashes and blasts in the latest violence erupting in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.
A British soldier serving in the NATO-led international forces was killed by "enemy fire" in Gerishk district of the southern Helmand province on...
|
|
|
Conflict resolution aimed at averting events like the recent war between Russia and Georgia was a key issue for the 56- nation Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said Thursday.
He was addressing some 50 foreign ministers as the 16th ministerial conference got under way...
|
|
|
Talks between Russia and Georgia in Geneva were welcomed Thursday by several foreign ministers attending a meeting of the 56-nation Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Finland.
The European Union and the OSCE helped broker a ceasefire after the war in August that included the stationing of military monitors...
|
|
|
Commuters passing through downtown Helsinki were Thursday advised to expect snarling traffic as foreign ministers and other dignitaries from the 56-nation Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were arriving for a two-day meeting.
Finnish President Tarja Halonen was to formally open the session by...
|
|
|
NATO could discuss with Russia a future security structure for Europe, but President Dmitry Medvedev must first clarify his plans - and NATO is in any case not going to dissolve itself, the head of the transatlantic alliance said Wednesday.
"If the Russian president ... has proposals to make, and these should be a little bit more...
|
|
|
Spanish judicial experts expect no major new investigations into alleged human rights abuses during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing 36-year dictatorship, the daily El Pais said Thursday.
High-profile judge Baltasar Garzon's decision to drop the first such inquiry on Tuesday was described as a big blow by...
|
|
|
The delegations from Russia, Georgia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia arrived Wednesday morning at the United Nations in Geneva for a second round of talks since they went to war in the summer.
Also attending the meetings are representatives from the United States, European Union, UN and Organization for...
|
|
|
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon on Tuesday unexpectedly gave up his inquiry into alleged human rights crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing 36-year dictatorship.
Franco and his collaborators could no longer face legal responsibility for crimes, Garzon, a magistrate at the National Court,...
|
|
|
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon on Tuesday suddenly gave up his investigation into human rights crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing dictatorship.
Franco and 44 of his collaborators could no longer be held legally responsible for the crimesbecause they are dead, Garzon said in a judicial...
|
|
|
One man was killed and two injured in an exchange of fire in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia on Saturday, officials in the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi said.
The clash took place after Abkhazian border troops discovered a group of six people attempting to cross the border from mainland Georgia near the city of Gali, the...
|
|
|
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Hungarian counterpart Ferenc Gyurcsany Saturday failed to thaw icy relations between their countries in a meeting called to reduce nationalist tensions.
The leaders called for cooperation and condemned extremism after their meeting in the southern Slovak border town of Komarno.
However,...
|
|
|
| | |
