World News

Sri Lankan police officers detain an opposition protester during a protest in Maharagama, on the outskirts of the capital Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. Sri Lanka's defeated presidential candidate and former army chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka appealed for calm after violence broke out following his arrest.

photo: AP / Chamila Karunaratne

Crackdown Provokes Fears for Sri Lanka's Democracy
read more The New York Times

NEW DELHI - In a part of the world better known for the interruption of democracy than its stubborn endurance, Sri Lanka has always been something of an oddity. A small country that suffered through one of the world's nastiest recent wars, it nevertheless remained for the most part a vibrant multiparty democracy. Last spring the government of...

A helicopter lands for an emergency medical evacuation, while Marines and Afghan National Army soldiers with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment provide security and prepare to provide covering fire, Feb. 13, on the outskirts of the city of Marjah, Helmand province, Afghanistan.

photo: USMC / Lance Cpl. James Clark

Mines and mortars slow massive Afghan offensive
read more Yahoo Daily News

MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – Thousands of US-led troops fighting to capture a key Taliban bastion in Afghanistan had their progress slowed on Tuesday, running into resistance from mortars and scores of buried bombs. The slowing progress in what military officials have billed as the biggest operation in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks with media during his press conference at the presidency in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010.

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

Iran 'still open to nuclear deal'
read more Al Jazeera

Iran's president has said insisted that a UN-drafted uranium exchange deal remains a possibility with talks on the proposal "not yet closed". Speaking in Tehran on Tuesday, Mahmoud Ahmadinjad dismissed the assertions of the United States and its allies that the plan was effectively dead after Iran had begun the process of further...

Ukrainian opposition leader and presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, center, speaks to the media outside the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra church in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010.

photo: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko

Yanukovych win is a triumph for democracy - not Russia
read more The Times

The Kremlin has wasted no time in embracing Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Russian President-elect, even before he has been sworn in. President Medvedev issued an invitation to the conqueror of the pro-Western Orange revolution to visit Moscow in which he called the election victory a demonstration of Ukraine's desire "to end the historically...

In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service in Tokyo, North Korean youth dance in a square as they celebrate the 68th birthday of the country's leader Kim Jong Il on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010 in Pyongyang, North Korea.

photo: AP / Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service

Kim Jong-il birthday overshadowed by health and economic fears
read more The Guardian

Amid celebrations, undated video footage fails to allay concerns over the health of North Korea's leader and its economy Kim Jong-il: the North Korean leader is thought to have diabetes and depression. today marked the 68th birthday of its leader, , with extravagant eulogies and dance spectaculars – but the celebrations took place amid anxiety over...

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, right, looks up during the start of a round table meeting at an EU Africa summit in Lisbon, Saturday Dec. 8, 2007.

photo: AP / Michel Euler

EU renews sanctions on Zimbabwe
read more BBC News

The European Union has renewed its sanctions against Zimbabwe for another 12 months. It said the extension was due to a lack of progress in the implementation of the country's...

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki gestures while speaking during a working session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday Jan. 26, 2008. Business leaders and ministers will focus their attentions Saturday on the issue of trade and discuss the chances of getting a breakthrough in the WTO's Doha round of negotiations for a global trade deal.

photo: AP Photo / Michel Euler

Iran hits back at Clinton 'dictatorship' warning
read more BBC News

Iran has attacked US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her suggestion that the country is becoming a "military dictatorship". Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called Monday's statement in Qatar a "new deception". Mrs Clinton had said the government of Tehran was being "supplanted" by the Iranian Revolutionary...

Myanmar children look on as officials gather relief supplies for the village of Twantay, Myanmar, April 30, 2009. Myanmar residents are still struggling to meet basic daily needs a year after Cyclone Nargis struck the area. Twantay is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Yangon.

photo: AP / Khin Maung Win

UN envoy examines Myanmar rights
read more Al Jazeera

The United Nations' special envoy to Myanmar has visited the country's western border as part of a human rights inspection ahead of national elections. Tomas Quintana's trip to the region on the border with Bangladesh is part of a five-day mission that will assess the military regime's progress on human rights before elections promised...

Haiti's President Rene Preval, left, motions to Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper at the Canadian army base next to the intertnational airport in Port-au-Prince, Monday Feb. 15, 2010. Harper is on a one day visit to Haiti to evaluate the reconstruction efforts after the Jan 12 earthquake.

photo: AP / Dario Lopez-Mills

Canada gives $12M to build base for Haiti's government
read more National Post

By Andrew Mayeda, Canwest News ServiceFebruary 16, 2010 12:00 AM Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Haitian President Rene Preval met in tents set up at the airport outside Port-au-Prince yesterday. Harper is on a two-day visit of the quake-ravaged country. Photograph by: St. Felis Evens, Reuters, Canwest News Service Canada will provide up to...

In this photo made Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010, an Afghan National Army soldier searches an Afghan man after he arrived at an outpost of U.S. soldiers of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, in the Badula Qulp area, west of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. The Afghan man brought his 7-year-old boy, who was wounded at sunrise in crossfire near the Taliban stronghold of Marjah.

photo: AP / Pier Paolo Cito

Taliban's top military commander captured in raid by Pakistani, US intelligence forces
read more Star Tribune

ISLAMABAD - The Taliban's top military commander has been arrested in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation in Pakistan in a major victory against the insurgents as U.S. troops push into their heartland in southern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 behind Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a close...