JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was meeting his hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday in a bid to mend ties after sidelining him in talks aimed at ending a crisis with Turkey. Israeli Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer and Turkish Foreign Minister

KAMPALA: A fugitive suspect in Rwanda`s 1994 genocide with a five-million dollar reward on his head has been arrested in Uganda, police said on Friday. "He was in (the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the people in Arusha were tracking him," Edward Ochom, head of Uganda`s Criminal

WASHINGTON: Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailiani, the first Guantanamo prisoner transferred to the US mainland, is not suffering from mental stress and is fit to stand trial in New York in September, a judge said Thursday.Charged in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,

MATAMOROS: Alex, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, weakened across northeast Mexico Thursday, leaving at least one person dead after disrupting oil clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico.Heavy rainfall remained a major hazard over northeast Mexico and southern Texas, where

MEXICO CITY: A clash between suspected members of rival drug gangs left 21 people dead on Thursday in a rural area of the Mexican state of Sonora, very close to the US border, Mexican justice officials said.The clash involved "two groups of suspected drug traffickers and undocumented"

KUNDUZ: The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide and gun attack on a US aid organisation in northern Afghanistan on Friday that left at least three people dead, including a German national. "This morning six Taliban suicide bombers attacked the United States development

NARATHIWAT: Five people, including three military rangers, were killed in a bomb attack in Thailand`s troubled Muslim-majority southern provinces, police said Friday.The roadside blast ripped though the rangers` truck late Thursday while they were on patrol in Ruso district in Narathiwat,

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama called on Republicans to back reforms to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows, but his foes swiftly accused him of cynical "political pandering."After 18 months in office, and repeated vows to fight for comprehensive immigration

KABUL - A NATO soldier died in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan Thursday, the military alliance said, the first casualty of this month after a toll of more than 100 deaths in June.The soldier died "following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan today," NATO`s

BRUSSELS - US General David Petraeus, the new Afghan war commander, pledged Thursday to give his forces the right firepower to fight the Taliban but insisted that sparing civilian lives remained a priority.Petraeus was at NATO headquarters in Brussels to brief allies before taking up his

HARARE - A Zimbabwean woman killed her infant son and sold one of his ears for 20 US dollars to a traditional healer wanted for ritual murders in neighbouring Mozambique, police said on Thursday."We can confirm that the woman Christine Hofisi from Chipinge (near the Mozambican border)

NICOSIA: Cyprus police have launched an intensive hunt across the Mediterranean island for a key suspect in the Russia-US spy scandal after the alleged Kremlin paymaster jumped bail, a spokesman said Thursday. US ambassador to Cyprus Frank Urbancic, meanwhile, was meeting President

KABUL: NATO forces in Afghanistan said Thursday they had killed at least 31 Taliban fighters and captured a rebel chieftain after a raid on an insurgent hideout in the southern province of Helmand. Troops called in air support during running gunbattles in the province`s troubled Baghran

TEHRAN: Iran has written to the 15 members of the UN Security Council insisting that new sanctions slapped on the Islamic republic will not affect its nuclear programme, the state news agency said on Thursday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in the letters Iran "considers that

NARATHIWAT - An 18-year-old Indonesian religious student was stabbed to death at a mosque in the restive Thai south on Thursday, police said.The victim was knifed seven times while he slept in the mosque in Sungai Kolok, a border town in Narathiwat province. Six other students were

SEOUL - A South Korean court on Thursday passed 10-year prison sentences on two North Korean agents who posed as fugitives from the communist state in a bid to assassinate a top-ranking defector."The defendants admit all the charges, and testimony from other defectors and former agents

SYDNEY - An Indian-born surgeon dubbed "Doctor Death" was jailed for seven years in Australia on Thursday for the manslaughter of three patients and for injuring another with needless and botched operations.Jayant Patel, 60, was facing a maximum life sentence after a Supreme Court jury

ANKARA - Turkey`s Foreign Minister and an Israeli cabinet minister met secretly in Brussels to discuss ways of overcoming the deep crisis in bilateral ties, a Turkish official said Thursday. The meeting between Ahmet Davutoglu and Israeli Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer "took place

KOLKATA : Suchitra Sen, the super heroin of the Bengali filmdom, has been admitted to the Bellevue Hospital in a critical condition. Clinic sources said the legendary film star, whose films ran through 1960s and 1970s, was admitted to the hospital eight days ago with critical lungs

SYDNEY - An Australian fisherman got the fright of his life when a three-metre (10-foot) saltwater crocodile jumped from the water and locked its jaws on his net.Joel Pezzutti was casting for bait in a tidal drain in the northern city of Cairns when the croc leapt for his net and