World News

South Korean marines stand guard on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 26, 2010, three days after a North Korean artillery attack on the island.

photo: AP / Lee Jin-man

North Korea says US-South Korea exercises bring war closer
read more Gulf News

Paju, South Korea: North Korea said on Friday that impending military exercises by the South and the United States are pushing the region towards war, days after it launched its heaviest bombardment since the 1950-53 Korean War. South Korean media said President Lee Myung-bak would appoint a career military man as new defence minister after the...

A British police officer tries to put out a fire as some thousands of students gather at the Conservative Party headquarter building in London, Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010, to protest against plans to increase their student tuition fees and cut university funding.

photo: AP / Sang Tan

From the Levellers and Luddites to the Smashers
read more WorldNews.com

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. "I think that the poorest He that is in England hath a life to live as well as the greatest He." -An English Leveller, 1647 When tens of thousands of university students smashed their way into British Prime Minister David Cameron's office in London to protest the government's plans to triple tuition,...

Afghan election workers stack ballot boxes at Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission in Kabul on Sunday Sept. 19, 2010.

photo: AP / David Guttenfelder

Arrests in Afghan poll fraud probe
read more Al Jazeera

Afghan authorities have arrested at least four people as part of an investigation into fraud in the country's September parliamentary vote. The Afghan attorney-general's office announced the arrests on Thursday, saying that two of those detained were employees of the Independent Election Commission. The other two were...

A man holds a sign depicting Haiti's presidential candidate Yves Cristalin, of the LAVNI party, at a refugee camp during a campaign rally in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2010. Haiti will hold elections on Nov. 28 in the midst of a month-old cholera epidemic that has killed at least 1,000 people and hospitalized thousands.

photo: AP / Ramon Espinosa

Haiti heads for elections, police keep marches apart
read more The Star

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Armed Haitian police kept apart boisterous supporters of rival presidential candidates in Port-au-Prince on Thursday as the earthquake-hit Caribbean country heads for turbulent elections this weekend in the grip of a cholera epidemic. A supporter of presidential candidate Jude Celestine holds up a poster of Celestine...

Palestinians pray on the rubble of a mosque which was demolished by the Israeli army in the West Bank village of Yarza near Tubas town, where the army destroyed at least five buildings due to lack of Israeli permits, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2010.

photo: AP / Mohammed Ballas

Israeli troops raze mosque, buildings in West Bank
read more Daily Star Lebanon

By Agence France Presse (AFP) Compiled by Daily Star staff Friday, November 26, 2010 - Powered by --> Israeli troops razed a mosque and more than 10 other structures in two areas of the occupied West Bank Thursday, Palestinian sources said. Most of the demolition activity took place in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley,...

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, center right, and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center left, sign agreements at the Government House in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010. Erdogan arrived in Beirut on Wednesday on a two-day visit.

photo: AP / Bilal Hussein

Lebanon, Turkey ink long-awaited free trade deal
read more Daily Star Lebanon

By The Daily Star Friday, November 26, 2010 - Powered by BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed Wednesday a free trade zone agreement between Lebanon and Turkey, culminating six years of serious negotiations. “This agreement is a new beginning for the relations between Lebanon and Turkey and...

Firefighters stand outside the Hungarian Embassy, after bomb experts destroyed a suspicious package, in a controlled explosion, in the upmarket Athens district of Kolonaki, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010. A suspicious package at the Hungarian Embassy contained documents and was not a mail bomb, police said. Authorities sent a team of explosives experts to the embassy after being notified of the package, following a spate of mail bombings last week targeting embassies and European leaders. Two suspected members of a Greek militant group were arrested last week in connection with attacks involving 14 mail bombs, including one parcel that reached the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and another addressed to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi that was found on a courier company plane that landed in Bologna.

photo: AP / Thanassis Stavrakis

Greek guerrilla group claims parcel bomb attacks
read more The Star

ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek guerrilla group claimed responsibility on Thursday for a wave of parcel bombs sent to foreign governments and embassies in Athens this month and warned of more attacks. The booby-trapped packages were sent to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian prime minister Silvio...

Police in riot gear clash with students during a protest against the government-proposed education reforms which are being discussed in the Italian Parliament, in Florence, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2010. Thousands of students across Italy have occupied university buildings, bridges and piazzas to protest education cuts and reforms being debated by Parliament.

photo: AP / Fabrizio Giovannozzi

Unrest rocks Europe as debt crisis explodes
read more The Australian

ANGER and fear about a seemingly unstoppable debt crisis coursed through Europe yesterday. Striking workers shut down much of Portugal,...

A police stands in front of a bus burned by alleged treffickers at Vicente Carvalho neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday Nov. 24, 2010. Rio's entire military police force was ordered into the streets after more gang burned cars.

photo: AP / Silvia Izquierdo

Crackdown on Rio drug gangs kills 21
read more The Australian

AT least 21 people have been killed and 153 arrested in four days of clashes as Brazilian security forces crack down on drug gangs in...

A North Korean female soldier stands watch along the bank of the Yalu River, the China-North Korea border river, near North Korea's town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Thursday Nov. 25, 2010. China's premier Wen Jiabao called on all sides to exert "maximum restraint" over renewed tension on the Korean peninsula, adding Beijing opposes military provocations in any form. Wen's comments mark China's highest-level response so far to North Korea's deadly shelling Tuesday of a South Korean island. In keeping with China's status as Pyongyang's most important ally, Wen did not mention North Korea by name or assign blame over the attack.

photo: AP / Andy Wong

China urges restraint over Koreas
read more Al Jazeera

China's prime minister has called on all sides to observe "maximum restraint" over renewed tensions on the Korean peninsula two days after deadly shelling near a disputed maritime border killed four people. The call comes as South Korea's defence minister announced his resignation on the heels of severe public criticism for the military’s...