SYDNEY : Australian Prime Minister John Howard Sunday denied he planned to suddenly withdraw troops from Iraq, saying the idea was "absurd".
PARIS (AFP) - The entire EU energy market was thrown open to competition on Sunday, allowing consumers to choose their gas and electricity suppliers and spelling an end for monopolistic state-run utilities.
ACCRA (AFP) - Leaders of the African Union begin a three-day summit here Sunday focused on plans to forge a confederation of states that can help the world's poorest continent exercise greater clout on the world stage.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush lost his special trade power at midnight Saturday as opposition Democrats flexed their new grip on Congress and refused White House appeals to renew it.
LONDON (AFP) - Britain raised its national threat level to "critical" amid fears of a new Al-Qaeda-style attack, after police said they were treating three failed car bomb attacks in two days as connected.
DILI (AFP) - East Timor's voters cast ballots on Saturday to choose a new government tasked with uniting the population of the tiny fledgling state shattered by violence, poverty and soaring unemployment.
KABUL (AFP) - There were new claims Saturday of heavy civilian casualties in foreign military air strikes in Afghanistan after an operation that the US-led coalition said killed more than a dozen Taliban.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States and South Korea are set to sign a landmark free trade agreement to be sent for Congressional approval, but US lawmakers are already saying they will not vote for it.
BAGHDAD (AFP) - US and Iraqi forces backed by helicopters killed 26 militants suspected of links to "Iranian terror networks" in raids in the Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City on Saturday, the US military said.
LONDON (AFP) - British police on Friday defused a car bomb which could have caused carnage in London's entertainment district, sparking a manhunt and probe into possible international links.
ABIDJAN (AFP) - A plane carrying Ivory Coast Prime Minister Guillaume Soro was attacked Friday as it landed at an airport in the centre of the country, killing three people though Soro survived, a top aide told AFP.
DILI : Voters in Timor Leste (formerly known as East Timor) head to ballot boxes Saturday to choose a new government tasked with uniting a violence-weary population yet to savour the fruits of the nation's five-year-old independence.
MOSCOW (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez railed against the United States at the start of a visit to Russia on Thursday and called on Moscow to help lead a global revolution against Washington.
TOKYO (AFP) - Peru's ex-president Alberto Fujimori has announced he will run for office in Japan in another bizarre twist to the career of the former strongman who is under house arrest in Chile.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US Senate Committee slapped subpoenas on the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office over a warrantless wiretap program Wednesday, spiking tensions in a constitutional showdown.
BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission decided Wednesday to haul Germany before the European Union's highest court over a law it said tightens Deutsche Telekom's grip on the market for broadband Internet access.
PARIS (AFP) - More than half of the world's population will live in cities by 2008, a UN report said Wednesday urging help for poor nations, the first in line to be hit by galloping urbanisation.
SEOUL: North Korea appeared to have test-fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency said.
TEHRAN (AFP) - Angry Iranian youths torched petrol stations in Tehran and long queues formed at fuel pumps after the government announced the start of fuel rationing, triggering nationwide protests on Wednesday.
BEIJING - School has suddenly got tougher for China's 400 million children who have an extra subject to tackle - the Olympic movement.
TOKYO: Japan on Wednesday brushed aside growing pressure from US lawmakers for a fresh apology for Tokyo's wartime sexual enslavement of an estimated 200,000 women.
BUCHAREST (AFP) - A searing heatwave has killed at least 46 people across southern Europe while in Britain torrential rain claimed three lives and forced hundreds to flee a creaking dam.
GWADAR, Pakistan (AFP) - A powerful cyclone lashed Pakistan's southern coast on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people, leaving dozens more missing and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes, officials said.
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) - Lebanese troops and Islamic extremists exchanged heavy fire for a 38th day on Tuesday as Spain mourned six peacekeepers killed in a "terrorist" attack in the south of the country.
HONG KONG : Long celebrated for its picturesque harbour and dazzling skyscrapers, as well as low taxes and a business-friendly government that has made it rich terrain for property developers, Hong Kong is in the grip of a debate on its post-colonial identity.
TOKYO: Japan said Tuesday it would stick to its position over former "comfort women" even if a US Congressional panel backs a bill demanding a fresh, unambiguous apology over wartime sexual slavery.
SYDNEY: Aborigines on Tuesday said the government was trying to steal their land under the guise of responding to a crisis that Prime Minister John Howard has labelled Australia's own Hurricane Katrina.
BEIJING (AFP) - United Nations nuclear inspectors arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday for their first visit since being kicked out of North Korea nearly five years ago, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
MADRID (AFP) - The bodies of the six soldiers serving with Spanish UN forces killed in a Sunday bombing in Lebanon arrived back in Spain in the early hours of Tuesday to a sombre reception at Torrejon airbase outside Madrid, Spanish media reported.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Congress takes up Tuesday a divisive bill balancing border security and the documentation of 12 million illegal aliens, in a make-or-break debate that could scuttle immigration reform until after the 2008 presidential election.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The World Bank on Monday approved Robert Zoellick as its next president as the 185-country development lender moved to turn a page after a scandal that undermined its credibility around the world.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a Middle East summit in Egypt on Monday he was ready to free 250 Fatah prisoners in a gesture of goodwill to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
PARIS (AFP) - France, the United States, China and some 15 other nations agreed on Monday to redouble efforts to end bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region by supporting a new peace force and negotiations on a settlement.
DUBAI (AFP) - Osama bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri has voiced his backing for Hamas and warned against any offensive to wrest control of Gaza from the Islamist movement, in an Internet tape broadcast on Monday.
BEIJING (AFP) - Brick kilns and mines at the centre of a slavery scandal used more than 53,000 illegal migrant workers, state media reported Monday, as the probe into the abuses spread.
KATHMANDU: Nepal's eight political parties announced on Sunday that November 22 will be the date for the Himalayan nation's first post-war elections originally scheduled for June.
SINGAPORE: Thailand's economy will return to the fast track once it resolves lingering political uncertainty following September's coup, Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn said on Sunday.