Panthernet

Japan said Tuesday it plans to ask Australia and possibly New Zealand and Chile to ban an anti-whaling protest ship from using their ports to refuel.

Two gunmen shot a Muslim cleric to death inside a mosque in southern Afghanistan, the second such incident in the area in less than two weeks, an official said Tuesday.

Russia’s gas dispute with Ukraine escalated as several European countries reported supplies had been cut.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India accused unspecified official agencies in Pakistan on Tuesday of supporting the gunmen who struck in Mumbai in late November.

As European diplomats sought a cease-fire, Israeli troops poured into Gaza City, expelling residents and shooting militants. Meanwhile, Israeli troops suffered casualties from so-called “friendly fire.”

The trip this week effectively represents the incoming administration’s first foray into foreign policy since the election.

Though never charged with a crime, Muhammad Saad Iqbal spent six years in American custody, during which he says he was secretly taken to Egypt and tortured.

The announcement by the Russian gas monopoly, which said it is trying to make up for gas stolen by Ukraine, was essentially a partial fuel embargo of Europe.

When a judge recently ruled that a public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, it was the latest blow to the Catholic Church’s once mighty grip on Spain.

India produced what it said was the first comprehensive evidence linking the Mumbai attackers to Pakistan.

Amid a plunge in oil revenues, Venezuela’s national oil company is suspending a program providing discounted heating oil to poor communities in the United States.

Gaza’s civilians — particularly those in militant strongholds — are finding it difficult to evacuate their homes before Israeli attacks begin.

The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is deeply worried about popular support for rival Hamas over the conflict in Gaza, to the point of crushing demonstrations.

Antwerp’s Orthodox Jews have set the tone of its lively diamond market for more than a century, but global economic forces threaten their livelihoods and way of life.

The Ebola virus, which causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever, has surfaced for the second time in less than two years in south-central Congo.

The Ministry of Public Security and six other agencies would work together “to purify the Internet’s cultural environment,” the government said in a statement.

President Bush has authorized an immediate airlift of vehicles and equipment to bolster the international peacekeeping mission in the conflict-torn Darfur region of western Sudan.

Arrests in the Xinjiang region for “endangering state security” grew rapidly last year, a report said.

The embassy, America’s largest in the world, is located in the Green Zone, which was also handed over to Iraqi control on Jan. 1.

A policeman was seriously injured in the latest sign of surging extremism after the police shooting of a teenage boy last month.