The United States said Monday it was ready to hold rare talks with two visiting key Syrian officials this week, in another signal of Washington's recent policy shift to engage directly with its enemies. Syria is on a US blacklist

Lawyers for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert renewed efforts on Tuesday to discredit an elderly Jewish-American millionaire whose testimony in a graft probe threatens to unseat the premier. Morris Talansky, who testified in May to having given Olmert about $150,000

Militants killed four brothers, all police officers, and captured their father in an attack on their home in the central Afghan Province of Ghazni, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. The Monday attack comes as extremist Taliban rebels step up action

Nearly 15 million people in the Horn of Africa region are facing a humanitarian disaster unless donors urgently release funds to deliver supplies, aid agencies warned Tuesday. In a region beset by conflict and piracy, prolonged drought and rising inflation

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres on Tuesday at Peres's official residence in Occupied Jerusalem to review developments in the peace process between the two sides. In a first for Abbas, the largely ceremonial Israeli president

Turkey's Constitutional Court will begin final deliberations Monday on whether to outlaw the Islamist-rooted ruling party for alleged anti-secular activity, a court official said on Tuesday. "The court has decided to begin meetings on July 28 in the case against

The wife of Egypt's best-known political dissident, Ayman Nur, on Tuesday lashed out at President Hosni Mubarak for failing to grant him the pardon he gave to more than 1,500 other prisoners. Nur, who mounted an unprecedented challenge against veteran

Iran on Tuesday rebuked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for making "inaccurate" remarks during a speech to the Israeli Parliament on Monday. Brown used the speech to attack Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his "abhorrent" threats against Israel. "The inaccurate

A senior Al-Qaeda leader said in a rare television interview that a suicide attacker who bombed the Danish Embassy in Pakistan last month came from Saudi Arabia. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian Al-Qaeda commander based in Afghanistan, told Pakistan's private

Syria said on Tuesday the International Criminal Court prosecutor's demand for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes would compromise efforts to bring peace to war-ravaged Darfur. The official news agency SANA quoted Syrian President Bashar

Pirates have seized a Japanese-owned vessel transporting lead and zinc off the Somali coast, a Kenyan maritime official said Tuesday. The Panama-flagged MV Stella Maris was seized on Sunday near Calula, a port town in Somalia's breakaway northern region of

British forces in Iraq will undergo a "fundamental change of mission" at the beginning of next year, as troop numbers reduce, Premier Gordon Brown told Parliament Tuesday. "Just as last year we moved from combat to overwatch, I would expect

Oman and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday signed lists of coordinates and detailed maps finalizing the delineation of their border, official news agencies in both Gulf countries said. The documents signed by Omani and Emirati interior ministry officials in

A Palestinian man was shot dead after going on a rampage with a payloader in Occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday, wounding at least 16 people as he ploughed into cars in the second such attack this month. Police chief Aharon Franco

White House hopeful Barack Obama stepped into the maelstrom of the Middle East Tuesday, warning the next US president could not just snap his fingers and make peace, as fresh violence rocked the region. The Democratic senator's high-risk tour to

Captured war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men, was arrested on genocide charges while practicing medicine under a fake name in Belgrade, officials said Tuesday. Karadzic, the wartime Bosnian Serb leader who had remained at

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened on Tuesday to withdraw his security forces from the Occupied West Bank town of Nablus unless Israel halts military raids there, a Palestinian MP said. "President Abbas said if the Israelis continue their attacks against

The UN Security Council received Monday copies of the letters exchanged between Hizbullah and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and between Israel and Ban during the negotiations leading to last week's prisoner swap, which was mediated by German intermediary

Concrete action must be taken to complete the fight against corruption as called for in president Michel Sleiman's inaugural speech, CEO of the Team Holding Group (THG) and political activist Talal Makdessi said in a statement on Monday. "The work