U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry headed to the Middle East on Saturday, his third trip to the region in two weeks , in a fresh bid to unlock long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.Istanbul was the first leg of a six-nation trip that will see him travel on to Europe and East Asia.From Turkey, he planned to go to Jerusalem for meetings with the presidents and prime ministers of both Israel and the Palestinians. Kerry accompanied President Barack Obama there last month and made a solo trip

A major 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern Indonesian province of Papua on Saturday, the US Geological Survey said, sending panicked crowds running into the streets.There were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued after the quake struck on land at 1:42 pm (0442 GMT) at a depth of 75 kilometres (46 miles), 272 kilometres west-southwest of provincial capital Jayapura, the USGS said.   Local seismologists had measured the quake at 7.2 magnitude.People in the area

It's a data leak involving tens of thousands of offshore bank accounts, naming dozens of prominent figures around the world. And new details are being released by the day _ raising the prospect that accounts based on promises of secrecy and tax shelter could someday offer neither.Among those named include a top campaign official in France, the ex-wife of pardoned oil trader Marc Rich, Azerbaijan's ruling family, the daughter of Imelda Marcos and the late Baron Elie de Rothschild. The widespread

LONDON (AFP) ― Millions of emails and leaked records from offshore tax havens have exposed the identities of thousands of holders of offshore accounts, including the family of the president of Azerbaijan and French President Francois Hollande’s one-time campaign treasurer, the Guardian and Le Monde newspapers reported on Thursday.The alleged involvement of Jean-Jacques Augier adds to the pressure on Hollande, who is already on the defensive after his former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was cha

A middle-aged man who transported poultry for a living and another unidentified person have died from a new strain of bird flu, bringing the death toll to five among 14 confirmed cases in China, the government and state media reported Thursday.The 48-year-old man, who died in Shanghai, is one of several among the infected believed to have had direct contact with fowl. Until recently, the virus, called H7N9, was not known to infect humans. The official Xinhua News Agency did not identify the fift

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank in a show of outrage Thursday over the deaths of two Palestinian protesters killed in clashes with Israel and a third Palestinian who died of cancer in an Israeli prison. In Gaza, militants fired a rocket that landed in southern Israel, causing no casualties.The unrest has heighted tensions between Israel and the Palestinians after days of West Bank clashes and rocket fire into southern Israel, prompting the

NEW YORK (AP) -- Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has a book deal.She is working on a memoir and policy book about her years as secretary of state, Simon & Schuster told The Associated Press. The book has yet to be titled and is tentatively scheduled for June 2014. Financial terms were not disclosed. Clinton reportedly received $8 million for the 2003 memoir, ``Living History,'' also published by Simon & Schuster.``Hillary Clinton's extraordinary public service has given her a un

Drivers involved in fatal U.S. car crashes were more often "lost in thought" than distracted by mobile phones, police data show.Ten percent of U.S. auto accidents that caused death involved at least one motorist who was distracted, Erie Insurance Group said yesterday in a statement on its analysis of national crash data. Daydreaming and being "lost in thought" was the distraction 62 percent of the time, compared with 12 percent for mobile-phone use, Erie said.Auto insurers including State Farm M

KHARTOUM (AFP) -- The first UN food aid has been allowed into Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile state in a "major breakthrough," the World Food Programme said on Thursday, after severe government restrictions."This is the first time that the agency has distributed food assistance since the conflict broke out in September 2011," the WFP said.The war in Blue Nile and another state, South Kordofan, has occurred largely out of world view as Sudan, citing security concerns, tightly constrained the movement

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) -- Iran and world powers trying to curb Iran's nuclear progress are coming to the negotiating table this week with the window shrinking on diplomacy. Tehran is moving closer to the ability to make atomic arms, and that risks the threat of Mideast conflict.Israel says the Islamic Republic is only a few months away from the threshold of having material to turn into a bomb and has vowed to use all means to prevent it from reaching it. The United States has not said what its

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Few imagined Myanmar would embrace democracy when the U.S. began its historic engagement with the military regime. The country's rapid changes were lauded by visiting Western leaders, and the nation's president was hailed as a hero. But spasms of spreading, communal violence show the reform path is bumpier than expected and have taken the sheen off a foreign policy success of the Obama administration's first term.While Washington says the country's overall direction is still p

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- An airstrike by U.S.-led forces mistakenly killed four policemen and two civilians in eastern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Thursday.The civilians were two brothers who were in a car that was being searched by the police at a checkpoint when the strike occurred in the Deh Yak district of Ghazni province, according to district chief Fazel Ahmad Toolwak. He said NATO troops were fighting Taliban militants about 10 kilometers (six miles) away, but those killed in t

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AFP) -- Iran wants its right to enrich uranium recognised when the Islamic republic sits down for talks on its disputed nuclear programme with world powers in the Kazakh city Almaty, Iran's chief negotiator said on Thursday."We think that they can open up tomorrow's (Friday's) talks with one phrase -- and that is to accept Iran's right, particularly its right to enrich," chief negotiator Saeed Jalili said in an address in Almaty.