BEIRUT (AP) ― The Arab League has given Syria until Wednesday to allow observers into the country or else it will likely turn to the U.N. Security Council for action to try to end the deadly violence against regime opponents, Qatar’s prime minister said Saturday.Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani said in Qatar that Arab foreign ministers will hold a “decisive and important” meeting in Cairo on Wednesday to decide on next steps. He said there is near unanimity on taking the Arab League’s pl

 

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) ― Zahora Jasim lost two brothers to bombs and gunmen in the years of turmoil and violence that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Now, as the troops leave for home, the Baghdad housewife fears her country’s troubles are not over and wonders, like many Iraqis, if their fragile democracy will slide back into sectarian strife. “The only images I have in my mind from these nine years are the deaths of my brother and his wife, of being forced from our homes, and the death of anothe

MOSCOW (Reuters) ― Russia’s offer of a new U.N. Security Council resolution on the violence in Syria is a pragmatic step by a country increasingly isolated in its support for a widely discredited leader.The shift allows Russia to look less recalcitrant without giving ground on its opposition to sanctions or foreign military interference, which it has vociferously opposed since the NATO operation in Libya.With the death toll mounting in bloodshed the world blames mostly on Syrian President Bashar

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The United States, facing a rising China but a tighter budget, expects to station several combat ships in Singapore and may step up deployments to the Philippines and Thailand, a naval officer said.The United States has been increasingly vocal about defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where tensions over territorial disputes between Beijing and Southeast Asian nations have been on the rise.In an academic article forecasting the shape of the U.S. Navy in 202

TEHRAN (AFP) ― Iran is to insert its first domestically produced uranium fuel into its Tehran reactor by mid-February, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published by the IRNA state news agency on Thursday.“Within the next two months the first fuel plate which is produced with the 20 percent enriched uranium will be placed in Tehran’s research reactor,” Salehi, who previously headed Iran’s nuclear organisation, was quoted as saying.His statement was an excerpt from a longer inter

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ― Russia surprised fellow U.N. Security Council members on Thursday with a proposed new resolution to address the rising violence in Syria.Western members of the council who have been pressing for tough measures against President Bashar Assad’s regime welcomed the move, but said it didn’t go far enough because it didn’t include an arms embargo or other sanctions.Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the text calls for an end to the violence that the U.N. estimates has killed

WASHINGTON (AP) _ When someone is talking to you, your brain is listening, processing and thinking about what is being said _ even if you are in the driver's seat trying to concentrate on traffic.That is why drivers get distracted during cellphone conversations, even when using hands-free phones, re

LOS ANGELES, Dec 15, 2011 (AFP) - Shots were fired at or near the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles on Thursday, but no one was injured, police said, adding that an Asian suspect was being sought."It was a shooting at the building" housing the consulate general, which is between downtown LA and Holly

Small private airline PC Air says it will begin operating charter flights this month with Bangkok-Vientiane service and will start serving China next month.Originally the charter service was to take off around the middle of this year or in the third quarter, but factors such as the flood disaster fo