CIUDAD JUAREZ:  Eight hitmen were killed in a shootout with scores of soldiers in a mountainous area of northern Mexico, after gunfights virtually shut down a city on the Texas border, officials said Thursday. "A group of 100 soldiers and 60 drug traffickers clashed in the Tarahumara

  BEIRUT:  Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that he expected members of his party to be charged by a UN court probing the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, warning he stood ready for such a scenario. "I was personally informed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri before his

NOUAKCHOTT:  Mauritanian troops attacked the base of an Al-Qaeda affiliate, killing several "terrorists," a Mauritanian official said Friday, without confirming whether the move sought to free a French hostage. "The operation which targeted a terrorist base is complete," the source

SEOUL: The United States plans to freeze some 100 overseas bank accounts believed linked to illicit North Korean transactions, South Korean media reports said Friday. "The assets in those accounts are likely to be money (leader) Kim Jong-Il needs to operate his regime, so this will deal

TAIPEI: A top Chinese negotiator is set to visit Taiwan next month, an official said Friday, his first visit since he was mobbed and shoved to the ground by a pro-independence crowd on the island. Zhang Mingqing will attend an academic forum in Taipei and plans to meet his Taiwanese

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez called an emergency Defense Council meeting overnight Thursday, after cutting ties with Colombia over accusations Venezuela was harboring hundreds of leftist rebels. The "extraordinary" council meeting on national security matters included Vice President

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Thursday gave army chief General Ashfaq Kayani three more years in the top job, saying the country had reached a vital stage in the battle against militants. The premier said that the decision to give the extension to the 58-year-old

SEOUL: North Korea`s military held a second round of talks Friday with the US-led United Nations Command about the sinking of a South Korean warship, a Command spokesman said. The meeting at the border truce village of Panmunjom began days after Washington announced plans for new

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was heckled by rowdy protesters on Friday as she delayed action on climate change to consult a "citizens assembly", in a major announcement before elections. Security staff tackled one demonstrator to the ground and led him away in

HANOI:  Asia-Pacific`s biggest security dialogue opened in Vietnam on Friday with the United States and South Korea seeking a statement condemning North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to ask China to do more

SANAA:  Fresh clashes between Shiite Huthi rebels and army-backed tribes in north Yemen killed 20 people, a tribal official said Thursday, bringing to at least 69 the death toll in five days of fighting that has rattled a fragile truce. "Violent clashes took place overnight between

HANOI - North Korea on Thursday condemned imminent US-South Korea naval exercises as a threat to global peace as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Vietnam for Asia-Pacific security talks. A spokesman for the North Korean delegation in Hanoi also dismissed fresh US

JAKARTA - The United States announced Thursday it was resuming military ties with Indonesian special forces after a 12-year pause, during a visit by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to Jakarta.\\\"We will begin a gradual, measured process of working with Kopassus,\\\" a senior US defence

JAKARTA - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Jakarta Thursday to discuss the possible resumption of military ties with Indonesian special forces.Gates, who arrived from a visit to Seoul, was due to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Defence Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro

SINGAPORE: The Singapore government`s measures to reduce the impact of recent floods on homes and businesses were insufficient, the island`s founding father Lee Kuan Yew said in remarks published Thursday.   Lee, commenting on Wednesday after Singapore suffered three bouts of severe

HANOI: New US sanctions against North Korea will violate a United Nations statement issued after the sinking of a South Korean warship, a spokesman for Pyongyang said Thursday. Ri Tong Il, a spokesman for the North Korean delegation at regional security talks in Vietnam, said the

LONDON:  Two British servicemen were shot dead in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday as they went to the aid of a wounded comrade, the Ministry of Defence in London said.   The soldiers were killed by small arms fire as they formed a cordon to evacuate a casualty in a "courageous and

 PRISTINA: Key dates in the history of Kosovo as the International Court of Justice prepares to give a non-binding opinion on the legality of its proclamation of independence from Serbia.   - 12th Century: Kosovo is in the heart of a Serbian empire ruled by the Nemanjic dynasty in a

 WASHINGTON: The US authorities filed terrorism charges Wednesday against a young American accused of trying to join Somalia`s Shebab militant group.   Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, of Fairfax County, Virginia was apprehended by federal agents on July 10 as he tried to board a plane to

  LONDON, July: Britain`s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg made a gaffe Wednesday by calling the 2003 Iraq war "illegal" while standing in for Prime Minister David Cameron at the House of Commons for the first time.   Clegg, a long-time opponent of the war, was replacing Cameron at