U.S. Army investigators found traces of blood from nine people on the clothes of a U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers, but only one of the DNA samples matched blood found at the crime scene, a forensic specialist said on Thursday. Military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, accusing him of gunning down the villagers - mostly women and children - ...

By LOLITA C. BALDOR WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon says an Iranian military plane fired upon, but did not hit, an unarmed U.S. drone aircraft a week ago in what a spokesman said was international airspace over the Persian Gulf. Pentagon press secretary George Little disclosed the incident was disclosed Thursday. Little said the drone aircraft was performing "routine surveillance" and was about 16 miles off ...

Politicians in Israel were falling over themselves on 7 November to congratulate Barack Obama on his re-election as United States president and reaffirm the strategic bonds between the two countries ahead of Israel's general election in January. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu led the plaudits, saying: "I will continue to work with President Obama to ensure the interests that are vital for the security of ...

Salman Khurshid was appointed as India's minister of external affairs on 28 October, as part of an extensive cabinet reshuffle.Khurshid replaced 80-year-old SM Krishna, the previous postholder, who had been suffering from health problems. It is a return to familiar surroundings for Khurshid, who was a junior minister in the foreign office between 1993 and 1996during the government of PV Narasimha Rao. Durin ...

Aliza Marcus The new face of the Kurdish rebel fight in Turkey could easily be Zeynep, a thirty-year-old university graduate with a full-time management job in Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of the Kurdish southeast. Born in Bingol Province, in the mountains where rebels of the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party) regularly battle Turkish soldiers, she moved to western Turkey for university. There, she jo ...

Israel’s prime minister ordered the military to go on high alert for a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program two years ago, but backed off following strong objections from senior security officials, a respected Israeli news program reported The report exposed a deep rift between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top security officials over the wisdom of attacking Iran but also indicated that Isra ...

The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) will hear, next February, the appeals of banned Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif against the ICC's bans for spot-fixing. Asif's case will be heard between February 5-7, and Butt's on the 8th, it was confirmed on Monday. The CAS, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, is recognised as the world's highest judicial body for sportsmen and cases involvi ...

Journalists are excited by social media, but most voters still rely on TV for their political news This was the first Twitter election, some commentators declared – on Twitter. Oh no it wasn’t. This was the 14th television election in the United States. Ever since 1960, when 61 per cent of households with TVs watched the first televised debate between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy, presidential campaigns ...