US President Barack Obama has been sworn in for a second four-year term.

Barack Obama, battered but still popular after a bruising first term as president, will be sworn in for another four years today to lead an America perhaps as divided politically and socially as at any time since the Civil War 150 years ago.

At least nine passengers were killed when a remote-controlled bomb struck a bus in Afghanistan today, police said.

Roadside bombs have killed 14 Afghan civilians, five policemen and one member of the US-led international military coalition in southern Afghanistan, Afghan and Nato authorities said today.

Five civilians, including a three-year-old child, were killed when a minivan hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, authorities said today.

An airstrike by the US-led Nato coalition has killed eight members of a family in eastern Afghanistan, local authorities have said.

Nato has invited Pakistan’s president to the upcoming Chicago summit on Afghanistan, the strongest sign yet that Islamabad is ready to reopen its western border to US and Nato military supplies heading to the war in the neighbouring country.

Two children have been killed by a bomb in eastern Afghanistan, officials said today.

Osama bin Laden’s three widows and his children have been deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia.

The American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a pre-dawn shooting rampage was named tonight as Staff Sgt Robert Bales.

Moving from house to house, a US Army sergeant opened fire on Afghan villagers as they slept, killing 16 people – mostly women and children – in an attack that reignited fury at the US presence following a wave of deadly protests over Americans burning Korans.

Afghanistan’s president has appealed for Pakistan’s help in negotiating a peace deal with Taliban militants before a summit today that will also include Iran’s leader.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, took his extradition battle to Britain’s Supreme Court yesterday, arguing that sending him to Sweden would violate a fundamental legal principle.

THE Obama administration is considering transferring to Afghan custody a senior Taliban official suspected of major human rights abuses as part of a long-shot bid to improve the prospects of a peace deal in Afghanistan, according to Reuters news agency.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari suffered a ’mini-stroke’ when he was taken ill recently, one of his aides has said.

FURY spread in Pakistan yesterday over a Nato cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and could undermine the US effort to wind up the war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan blocked vital supply routes for US-led troops in Afghanistan and demanded Washington leave a base used by American drones after coalition aircraft allegedly killed 24 troops at two posts along a mountainous frontier that serves as a safe haven for militants.

US president Barack Obama is to ask Polish leaders to use the lessons they learned during the fall of communism to aid fledgling democratic movements in the Middle East and North Africa.

Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989

THE visits by Queen Elizabeth II and President Barack Obama as respective heads of state of Britain and the United States pose a challenge for peace activists to distinguish between genuine efforts to promote peace and justice.

Pakistan has warned America of the "disastrous consequences" if it carries out any other unilateral raids against suspected terrorists in its country.

President Barack Obama launched his re-election campaign today in an email to 13 million supporters.

Four Nato soldiers were killed across Afghanistan by roadside bombs and an insurgent attack today.

A motorised rickshaw packed with civilian passengers struck a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan today, triggering a blast that killed all 13 people in the vehicle.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama offered Americans an optimistic assessment of the Afghanistan war yesterday, even as US spy agencies and aid groups express doubts about the progress amid worsening violence.

A Pentagon report on Afghanistan said progress in the nine-year-old war was fragile, but holding.

THE WikiLeaks website is today expected to release what the Pentagon fears is the largest cache of secret US documents in history – hundreds of thousands of intelligence reports compiled after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Afghan government has been holding secret talks for months with a Taliban group linked to al Qaida, a source said today.

A soldier who told investigators in horrifying detail that he and other members of his unit executed three civilians in Afghanistan for sport will not face the death penalty if convicted, the US Army said.

The posting of tens of thousands of secret Afghan war logs by the WikiLeaks website earlier this year compromised no sensitive intelligence sources or practices, the US Defence Department said today.

The top US commander in Afghanistan warned that a US church’s threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger US troops and Americans worldwide.

Swedish prosecutors today defended their handling of a rape allegation against the founder of WikiLeaks.

Swedish prosecutors have withdrawn an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying the rape suspicions against him are unfounded.

The Pentagon demanded today that a website that solicits leaked government secrets stop publishing more secret military documents and pull back tens of thousands of secret Afghan war logs already posted on the internet.

DUTCH troops ended their mission in Afghanistan yesterday after four “proud” years, in a departure experts say signals the beginning of a drawdown of foreign forces that will leave a worrying void.

GOVERNMENT and private sector power-brokers who have recognised the challenge posed by organisations like WikiLeaks and Cryptome are probably appalled by the publication of classified documents on the Afghan war.

The founder of the website Wikileaks has rejected US claims he has blood on his hands after releasing 90,000 leaked classified documents on the Afghan war.

A criminal investigation into the leak of tens of thousands of secret Afghanistan war logs could go beyond the military, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said, and he did not rule out that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be a target.

A packed bus hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan today, killing 25 people aboard, as Nato announced another US death in a rapidly rising monthly death toll.

THE release of some 91,000 secret US military documents on the Afghanistan war is just the beginning, WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange promised yesterday, adding that he still has thousands more Afghan files to post online.

The White House accused online whistleblower WikiLeaks of endangering the lives of American, British and other coalition troops after it posted around 90,000 leaked US military records today.

Firing General Stanley McChrystal would disrupt progress in the Afghan war and could jeopardise a pivotal security operation under way in Taliban strongholds, leaders in the country said today.

Five Afghan police and three Nato service members including one Briton have died in separate roadside bomb blasts, officials said today.