Foreign

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Saturday assured angry US voters who routed his Democratic allies this week that he got their message and urged jubilant Republicans to work with him on a tax-cut deal.
"Your message was clear," the president told Americans in his weekly radio address. "You're rightly frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery. So am I.
You're fed up with partisan politics and want results. I do too."
Obama vowed to target stubbornly high

MUMBAI: The United States and India stand together against terror, visiting President Barack Obama said Saturday, after meeting the families of victims and survivors of the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Obama spent time with those affected by the attacks nearly two years ago at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace hotel, which was the focus of the wave of strikes on the city that left 166 people dead and more than 300 others injured.
"Mumbai is a symbol of the incredible energy and

BAGHDAD: Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate said on Friday it was behind car bombings against Shiites in Baghdad this week that killed 64 people, saying they were revenge for "insults" and threatening more attacks.
The claim drew a strong reaction from the representative of Iraq's most respected Shiite cleric, saying it aimed to drag the country into new sectarian conflict.
In a statement on the Al-Hanein jihadi website, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) said Tuesday's attacks were

WASHINGTON: US Republicans, fired-up by their elections romp, vowed to slash government spending and target President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul with an eye on defeating him in 2012.
Obama, warning "we can't afford two years of just squabbling," announced he had invited top congressional Republicans and Democrats to the White House on November 18 to seek ways to work together after Tuesday's ballot-box rebuke.
"I think it's clear that the voters sent a

ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast opposition leader Henri Konan Bedie has challenged the results of an election in which he came third, failing to make the second round run-off, a spokesman said on Friday.
Ivory Coast's first election in a decade left Bedie with around 25 percent of the vote, against President Laurent Gbagbo's 38 percent and challenger Alassane Ouattara's 32 percent. Gbagbo and Ouattara now head to the second round scheduled for Nov 28.
The long-delayed poll in the

BRUSSELS: Croatia took a step towards finalising its European Union accession negotiations on Friday, closing talks on three policy areas in hopes of becoming an EU member in the next two years.
Zagreb's chief EU negotiator, Vladimir Drobnjak, said after meeting EU officials in Brussels that the former Yugoslav republic should be able to complete accession preparations in the first half of 2011.
"Our goal is to close talks during the Hungarian presidency of the EU. This is

CAPE CANAVERAL: A hydrogen leak in the external fuel tank of the space shuttle Discovery forced NASA to delay its final mission to the International Space Station Friday for the fifth time.
"The next possible launch attempt will be, at this point, not earlier than Monday," said spokesman Allard Beutel, who earlier announced a minimum 48-hour postponement.
Mission managers planned to meet later in the day to make a decision on the timing of the next launch attempt, the US

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Tropical Storm Tomas re-strengthened to a hurricane on Friday as it headed between Cuba and Haiti, drenching with overnight rain crowded tent and tarpaulin camps housing vulnerable Haitian earthquake survivors.
Although some camp dwellers in Haiti's capital, homeless from the Jan. 12 quake, were able to evacuate to more secure shelter with family or friends, or in schools and public buildings, hundreds of thousands spent the night under dripping plastic and

CHICAGO: Republicans won a big prize after making huge gains in state legislatures: a once-in-a-decade chance to literally redraw political maps.
The landslide which gave Republicans control of the US House of Representatives in one of the chamber's largest political swings also propelled Republicans to historic gains at the state level in Tuesday's key mid-term elections.
Republicans now control more state legislatures than at any point since 1928 and picked up a net gain

LONDON: A female student, thought to have been converted to violence by a radical preacher being hunted in Yemen, was jailed for life on Wednesday for trying to murder a British politician in revenge for him voting for the Iraq war.
Roshonara Choudhry, 21, knifed former Treasury Minister Stephen Timms twice in the stomach during an advice surgery at an east London community centre in May.
A security source told Reuters on Tuesday the student had been radicalised by

ANKARA: A Turkish court has reinstated a 30-month ban on YouTube just days after it was removed, as a dispute continued over the video-sharing website's refusal to remove content deemed illegal in the EU candidate country.
Access to YouTube, a unit of Google Inc, has been blocked by the Turkish government since May 2008 after users posted videos Turkey says are insulting to the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
A court in Ankara on Saturday lifted the ban, which

PURWOBINANGUN: Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano exploded in a frightening new eruption of lava and red-hot rocks on Wednesday, sparking panic and forcing the government to order new evacuations.
Scientists said the 2,914-metre mountain in central Java erupted with more force than last week's blasts that killed 36 people, spewing huge clouds of searing gas into the sky.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had visited some of the 75,000 evacuees in shelters near the fuming

VATICAN CITY: With al-Qaeda declaring war on Christians in Iraq and no end to political instability in sight, Catholic experts on the Middle East fear the fate of the minority Christian community there will only worsen.
The pessimism followed the bloodiest attack against Iraq's Christian minority since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Fifty-two hostages and police were killed on Sunday when security forces stormed a church that had been raided by al-Qaeda-linked gunmen.
The

MOSCOW: NATO and Russia need to embark on a new relationship, the head of the Western military alliance said on Wednesday on a trip to Moscow to lobby for Russian help in Afghanistan.
The visit by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will pave the way for a summit of the 28-nation alliance in Lisbon on Nov. 19-20. Russian President Dmitry Medevedev has accepted an invitation to attend the meeting, where NATO will work out a new strategic plan.
"The meeting in

NEW YORK: Crisp, sunny skies greeted US voters on Tuesday but the mood at polling stations was dark as Democrats desperately defended President Barack Obama and angry Republicans aimed for a crippling blow.
In Harlem, a historically African-American, pro-Democratic neighborhood of New York, a sense of urgency reigned as voters streamed to polling stations before heading to work. "The reason I got up early to come here today is a lot of people figure a Republican win is a done

JERUSALEM: Israeli Shin Bet undercover agents have abused Palestinians during questioning at a detention centre, some detainees have alleged in a report published on Tuesday by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
The report was based on the testimonies of 121 Palestinians held in 2009 at the Petah Tikva holding facility near Tel Aviv, with 9 percent of those interviewed accusing interrogators of using physical violence against them.
"The violations include cruel detention

OSLO: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to visit other islands disputed with Japan and step up investments in the archipelago, Russia's foreign minister said on Tuesday, deepening a diplomatic row between Moscow and Tokyo.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, attending a conference in Oslo, said Japan had over-reacted after Medvedev on Monday visited one of four islands seized by Russia from Japan at the end of World War Two.
Japan said it was recalling its ambassador