(Medical News Today) For next year, President Bush has proposed to cut the CDC HIV Prevention budget by $1 million. This is on top of this year's budget cut of $3.5 million. Neither the U.S. House of Representatives nor the U.S. Senate has proposed any increased funding for HIV Prevention. This is completely unacceptable.

(Reuters) First on Zimbabwe, now on Darfur, Western countries have lost out at the U.N. Security Council to African states backed by China and Russia.

GWADAR, PAKISTAN (The Atlantic) According to U.S. intelligence sources, Pakistan's intelligence service provided support to pro-Taliban insurgents responsible for the July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 40 people.

(VOA) Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has called his trial an international media-inspired witch hunt that, he said, will prevent him from getting a fair trial.

(BBC News) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced a plan to nationalise Bank of Venezuela, one of the largest banks in the country.

(VOA) Some Zimbabwe residents living in rural areas are reportedly voicing their strong opposition to a government of national unity with President Robert Mugabe leading that government.

(Times Online UK) India is set to clear one of the last three hurdles to its historic nuclear deal with the United States today when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approves a mechanism to safeguard and inspect Indian nuclear facilities.

(AFP) President Omar al-Bashir said in an interview published Thursday that he will not appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for charges of war crimes in Darfur while a court in Khartoum sentenced another 10 suspected rebels from the sprawling Western region to hang in connections with an attack on the capital in May.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A rebellious New Zealand Maori tribe entered into negotiations with the government Thursday in a bid to gain autonomy over its land.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the release of all Hamas activists detained in recent days by his security forces.

LAHORE (The Post) South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional body of human rights activists, will welcome SAARC summit to be held in Colombo on August 2-3 and commended the member governments' decision to address people's daily concerns - food, water, energy and environment, and urged them to also ensure social justice by ensuring fundamental rights.

(Guardian) The leader of Israel's rightwing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, today called for fresh elections in Israel after the Kadima leader Ehud Olmert's decision to resign as the prime minister.

(Der Spiegel) Turkey's national crisis has ended for now. With a single-vote majority, its Constitutional Court prevented a ban on the Islamist-rooted governing AKP party. Prime Minister Erdogan appeared publicly just hours after the ruling, but it was a clear slap in the face and he was in no mood to celebrate.

FORTALEZA, Brazil (International Herald Tribune) Desperate to escape her hand-to-mouth existence in one of Brazil's poorest regions, Maria Benedita Sousa used a small loan five years ago to buy two sewing machines and start her own business making women's underwear.

(Radio Australia) Democracy activists in Tonga have welcomed an announcement by the King that he's moving the country towards a constitutional monarchy, describing it as a victory for all Tongans.

Princeton, N.J. (Christian Science Monitor) Imagine that a soldier named Bashir overthrows the United States government. Bashir's militias leave everyone in Pittsburgh dead, and force everyone in Nevada to flee their homes. Bashir puts Alaska under military rule, and trades its oil to China for weapons and money that he will use to seize the oil fields of Texas.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) The U.S. military must stop using its only outpost in South America for anti-drug flights when Washington's 10-year lease on the base in Ecuador expires in 2009, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (International Herald Tribune) Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, a legendary political figure closely tied to the rough-and-tumble history of his home state, and who wields outsize influence over U.S. government spending, was indicted on Tuesday on seven felony counts of failing to disclose gifts that he received from an oil services company.

TEHRAN (PTI) India and Iran have pledged to take forward their cooperation in energy related matters, hours after New Delhi said it backed the right of all states to develop peaceful use of nuclear technology in accordance with their obligations.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) South Africa said on Tuesday that an increasing number of countries want the International Criminal Court, in the interest of peace in Darfur, to halt any genocide indictment of Sudan's president.

WASHINGTON (New York Times) A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

BEIJING (International Herald Tribune) Tourists leaving the west gate of the Temple of Heaven next month will probably not notice Song Wei's home across the street. Nor are spectators along the Olympic marathon route likely to stop by Sun Ruonan's restaurant nearby.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has appealed to the World Bank to help him secure emergency financing to bridge a shortfall in donor funds and pay public workers, Palestinian and European sources said Tuesday.

(San Jose Mercury) Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's visit to Washington comes at a time when his nation of 165 million is being lost to the dark side.

(BBC News) A French charity has accused Greece of creating a "humanitarian crisis" for hundreds of illegal migrants detained on the Mediterranean island of Lesbos.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) A human rights group urged Britain and the United States on Monday to suspend military cooperation with Kenya, saying Britain helped train Kenyan troops who are now accused of torture and murder.

(ISN Security Watch) Recent developments indicate subtle, important adjustments in Chinese policy toward Darfur, including the announcement that it will deploy an additional 172-member engineering battalion to Darfur by mid-July, bringing China's contribution to a total of 315 troops in support of the United Nations-African Union hybrid peacekeeping force.

(Bloomberg) Taiwan's government ordered financial markets and businesses to shut and closed schools today as Typhoon Fung-Wong struck the island, bringing torrential rains and winds gusting at 155 kilometers (96 miles) an hour.

ROME (Philippine Daily Inquirer) Catholic groups from Europe to the Americas have called on Pope Benedict XVI to reverse the Vatican’s opposition to contraception, on the 40th anniversary of a major papal encyclical confirming the Roman Catholic Church’s position against artificial birth control.

COLOMBO (Xinhua) Terrorism, food security and energy issues will top the agenda of the upcoming 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit to be held here, a leading Sri Lankan newspaper Daily News reported Monday.

BAGHDAD (International Herald Tribune) The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, moment for stability in Iraq.

PASTO, Colombia (New York Times) Along with Colombia’s successes in fighting leftist rebels this year, cities like Medellín have staged remarkable recoveries. And in the upscale districts of Bogotá, the capital, it is almost possible to forget that the country remains mired in a devilishly complex four-decade-old war.

IYATHIGEWEWA, Sri Lanka (AP) Iyathigewewa is a classic company town. But its young residents do not head to work in the local mine or factory - they go to war.

SINGAPORE (Thaindian News) The failure of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) to settle an escalating border row between two of its members has sorely exposed the bloc’s weakness in resolving disputes within the organization.

(BBC News) South Africa's president has called on the International Criminal Court not to prosecute Sudan's leader for war crimes in case it upsets Darfur's peace talks.