WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Tuesday it is negotiating a possible reduction in U.S. intelligence operatives and special operations officers in Pakistan as the two countries try to mend relations badly strained by the arrest and detention of a CIA security contractor for killing two Pakistanis. (more)
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s prosecutor general announced Wednesday the 15-day detention of former President Hosni Mubarak pending inquiries into accusations of corruption, abuse of authority and the killings of protesters during the uprising that ousted him from power. (more)
NEW DELHI (AP) — In a crowded courtroom on the city’s outskirts, the once unthinkable is reality: dozens of couples — rich and poor, educated and barely literate — seek divorce for reasons as varied as domestic violence to a simple inability to live together. (more)
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s prime minister is urging the public not to panic after the government boosted the severity level of the crisis at a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant to the highest rating — on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. (more)
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — The elected president of this West African nation heralded “the dawn of a new era of hope” Monday when a bloody, four-month standoff ended with the capture of his rival, the longtime strongman who lost the vote but refused to give up power. (more)
JERUSALEM (AP) — A new Israeli-made missile defense system has gotten off to an encouraging start, shooting down at least eight rockets in a test run that could potentially change the long-running war between Israel and Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza. (more)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Swedish fighter jets are roaring into action over Libya under NATO command. Ireland is offering itself as a transit hub for U.S. military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even famously independent Switzerland has peacekeepers in Kosovo. (more)
LONDON (AP) — The once hidebound royal family seems to have caught up with Britain’s tolerant public in the three decades that separated Prince Charles’ marriage to Diana Spencer from the wedding of their first born. (more)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — “Black sites,” the secret network of jails that grew up after the Sept. 11 attacks, are gone. But suspected terrorists are still being held under hazy circumstances with uncertain rights in secret, military-run jails across Afghanistan, where they can be interrogated for weeks without charge, according to U.S. officials who revealed details of the top-secret network to The Associated Press. (more)
BAGHDAD (AP) — Even with the burdens of combat in Afghanistan and unrest in the Arab world, the U.S. would keep American troops in Iraq beyond the agreed 2011 final withdrawal date if Iraq’s government asked for extra help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. (more)
With a Congressional budget showdown all but inevitable, U.S. foreign assistance is once again on the chopping block. As two long-serving Republican former members of Congress, we believe the fiscal situation in this country demands bold action. However, we are deeply concerned about the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ recent proposal to make sweeping cuts to the budgets of the State Department and at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). (more)
MILAN (AP) — The Moroccan teen at the center of the underage prostitution scandal enveloping Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi insists any damage she has suffered has been at the hands of the media — not the Italian premier. (more)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to smooth the worst rift in years with Arab ally and oil producer Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, reassuring the Saudi king that the U.S. remains a steady friend despite support for pro-democracy revolutions in the Middle East. (more)
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A rebel military leader lashed out at NATO Tuesday, saying it was falling short in its mission to protect Libyan civilians. The alliance said ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s forces position heavy weapons in populated areas, preventing some airstrikes. (more)
BRUSSELS (AP) — The U.S. military was pulling its warplanes from front-line missions Monday and shifting to a support role in the Libyan conflict, officials said. (more)
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — South Africa’s foreign ministry says the army chief for Ivory Coast’s entrenched strongman has left their embassy in Abidjan after seeking refuge there last week. (more)
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AP) — Demonstrators battled police in southern Afghanistan’s main city on Sunday and took to the streets in the turbulent east for the first time as Western pleas failed to halt a third day of rage over a Florida pastor’s burning of the Quran. (more)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Sunday it was launching an international campaign to push the United Nations to rescind a scathing report on Israeli war conduct in the Gaza Strip two years ago, after the report’s author backtracked from key allegations against the Jewish state. (more)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Unknown attackers wielding machetes and guns killed more than 1,000 civilians in the neighborhood of an Ivory Coast town controlled by forces fighting to install the internationally recognized president, the Catholic charity Caritas told The Associated Press Saturday. (more)
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis packed a square in the capital and marched in villages and cities across the nation on Friday in what appeared to be the largest demonstrations in more than a month of demands the country’s longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. (more)
