WASHINGTON:The US unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent last month as more than half a million people abandoned the job hunt, fueling doubts about the economic recovery.The Labor Department reported on Friday a net loss of 125,000 jobs last month even as unemployment fell to its lowest

SYDNEY: The head of the Catholic Church in Melbourne has offered an "unreserved apology" to victims of sexual abuse by priests, a report said Saturday.Archbishop Denis Hart says in a letter to be read out at services across the city over the weekend that recent abuse scandals have brought

WARSAW: Victory for Bronislaw Komorowski in Poland`s snap presidential election Sunday could end a policy logjam, boosting stalled economic reforms, but also test his governing liberals` mettle, analysts say.Most recent opinion polls have shown Komorowski is the favourite to win the

MEXICO: Sunday`s elections in nearly half of Mexico`s states are expected to serve as an unofficial referendum on President Felipe Calderon`s clampdown on drug violence that is gripping the country. The violence is not only a campaign issue, it has hit the campaign. In the highest-level

MANILA: New Philippine President Benigno Aquino vowed Friday to strengthen the armed forces in a bid to crush a Maoist insurgency and Islamist rebellion which have simmered for decades. He said the 130,000-strong force was too small to properly protect a nation of more than 90 million

MINSK: Belarus, Russia sign long-awaited gas transit deal. BDST: 1430 HRS, July 2, 2010

ANKARA: Turkish jets bombed Kurdish rebel targets in neighbouring northern Iraq overnight following deadly clashes inside Turkey, the military said Friday. "The targets were hit successfully," it said in an online statement, without any mention of casualties among the separatist

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was meeting his hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday in a bid to mend ties after sidelining him in talks aimed at ending a crisis with Turkey. Israeli Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer and Turkish Foreign Minister

KAMPALA: A fugitive suspect in Rwanda`s 1994 genocide with a five-million dollar reward on his head has been arrested in Uganda, police said on Friday. "He was in (the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the people in Arusha were tracking him," Edward Ochom, head of Uganda`s Criminal

WASHINGTON: Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailiani, the first Guantanamo prisoner transferred to the US mainland, is not suffering from mental stress and is fit to stand trial in New York in September, a judge said Thursday.Charged in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,

MATAMOROS: Alex, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, weakened across northeast Mexico Thursday, leaving at least one person dead after disrupting oil clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico.Heavy rainfall remained a major hazard over northeast Mexico and southern Texas, where

MEXICO CITY: A clash between suspected members of rival drug gangs left 21 people dead on Thursday in a rural area of the Mexican state of Sonora, very close to the US border, Mexican justice officials said.The clash involved "two groups of suspected drug traffickers and undocumented"

KUNDUZ: The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide and gun attack on a US aid organisation in northern Afghanistan on Friday that left at least three people dead, including a German national. "This morning six Taliban suicide bombers attacked the United States development

NARATHIWAT: Five people, including three military rangers, were killed in a bomb attack in Thailand`s troubled Muslim-majority southern provinces, police said Friday.The roadside blast ripped though the rangers` truck late Thursday while they were on patrol in Ruso district in Narathiwat,

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama called on Republicans to back reforms to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows, but his foes swiftly accused him of cynical "political pandering."After 18 months in office, and repeated vows to fight for comprehensive immigration

KABUL - A NATO soldier died in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan Thursday, the military alliance said, the first casualty of this month after a toll of more than 100 deaths in June.The soldier died "following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan today," NATO`s

BRUSSELS - US General David Petraeus, the new Afghan war commander, pledged Thursday to give his forces the right firepower to fight the Taliban but insisted that sparing civilian lives remained a priority.Petraeus was at NATO headquarters in Brussels to brief allies before taking up his

HARARE - A Zimbabwean woman killed her infant son and sold one of his ears for 20 US dollars to a traditional healer wanted for ritual murders in neighbouring Mozambique, police said on Thursday."We can confirm that the woman Christine Hofisi from Chipinge (near the Mozambican border)

NICOSIA: Cyprus police have launched an intensive hunt across the Mediterranean island for a key suspect in the Russia-US spy scandal after the alleged Kremlin paymaster jumped bail, a spokesman said Thursday. US ambassador to Cyprus Frank Urbancic, meanwhile, was meeting President

KABUL: NATO forces in Afghanistan said Thursday they had killed at least 31 Taliban fighters and captured a rebel chieftain after a raid on an insurgent hideout in the southern province of Helmand. Troops called in air support during running gunbattles in the province`s troubled Baghran