Earlier this week, a drone the size of a fighter jet took off from the deck of an American aircraft carrier for the first time in a test flight that could eventually open the way for the US to launch unmanned aircraft from just about any place in the world.

The US believes that Syria’s regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale, the White House has said.

North Korea’s sabre-ratting against the US has actually left its strongest ally, China, feeling that it is being encircled, writes Paul Eckert.

When he lands in North Korea, even Google’s executive chairman will likely have to relinquish his smartphone, leaving him disconnected from the global information network he helped build.

Paraguay’s Senate has voted to remove President Fernando Lugo from office in an impeachment trial, and the former priest said he would leave even though he considered his ouster as a blow to democracy.

IT WAS the scenario strategists from Beijing to Washington feared.

SECURITY experts have discovered the biggest series of cyber attacks to date, involving the infiltration of the networks of 72 organisations, including the United Nations, governments and companies around the world.

Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to Saudi Arabia for urgent medical care after a rocket attack on his palace, raising the spectre of a violent power grab in the impoverished country shaken by months of protests calling for his ousting.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister has criticised the release of confidential US diplomatic cables as "very, very unhelpful".

TWO suicide bombers targeted authorities in southern Russia yesterday, killing 12 people, including nine police officers. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the blasts may have been organised by the same militants who attacked the Moscow subway.

An American defence contractor said today it would stop stamping bible references on combat rifle sights sold to the US Army and Marines and the Australian and New Zealand military.

Organisers of the 2016 Olympics are pitching host city Rio de Janeiro as a potential “power island” immune from blackouts like the one that left 60 million Brazilians in the dark, though experts yesterday questioned whether a safe energy haven for the games is possible.

President Barack Obama’s Middle East summit today is being treated as a crucial bout of international diplomacy, even though noone is predicting any kind of breakthrough.

SHANGHAI is urging eligible couples to have two children as worries about the looming liability of an ageing population outweighs concerns about over-stretched resources, a city official said yesterday.

President Barack Obama has described talks with Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai as “extraordinarily productive”.

President Barack Obama will today host talks with Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai in a bid for closer regional co-operation and a greater response to the Taliban insurgency.

BALLISTIC missiles could be Israel’s weapon of choice against Iranian nuclear facilities if it decides on a pre-emptive attack and deems air strikes too risky, according to a report by a Washington think-tank.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon said Sudan's expulsion of 13 aid groups would cause "irrevocable damage" to humanitarian operations in Darfur.

GERMANS are gaga over Barack Obama.

Fierce fighting over land killed 22 people and left 200 homes burned in Kenya's troubled western Rift Valley, officials said today, yet another eruption of ethnic clashes following the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.

Britain’s weekend handover of Basra province will have a limited effect on security in Iraq’s biggest oil region because rival Shiite warlords and local officials have been wielding the real power in the area.

Nicolas Sarkozy began his first visit to Washington as French president with a pledge that France has left behind tensions with the United States over the Iraq war.

US defence secretary Robert Gates, making his first official visit to China, is expected to press the country to do more to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in months to demand that US troops leave Iraq.

A package of incentives presented to Iran includes a major concession by Washington – an offer to join key European nations in providing some nuclear technology to Tehran if it stops enriching uranium, diplomats said.

The US, Britain and France are looking ahead to sanctions if Iran continues to defy demands that it halt uranium enrichment, but not the sweeping economic and military embargoes the UN Security Council imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

US president George Bush apologised to Chinese president Hu Jintao for a protest during an elaborate welcoming ceremony on the White House lawn.

AN ARRIVAL ceremony for the White House visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday didn't quite go to plan yesterday after a couple of embarrassing incidents.

US SECRETARY of State Condoleezza Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House.

European defence ministers will seek today to push forward efforts to modernise their forces a day after an influential Washington think-tank warned they must urgently overhaul the military to defend Europe’s interests against terrorists, failed states and regional crises.

A suspected Islamic militant was killed and three others were arrested in clashes with police in the coastal Red Sea city of Jeddah, after Saudi security forces discovered a wanted militant hiding in a residential building, authorities said today.

After two years of construction, workers are welding together and testing with water the last few sections of an 1,100-mile oil pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey.

US president George Bush will be committed during his second term in office to the “liberation of Cuba” by extending moral and political support to the communist nation’s people, a top State Department official says.

IRAQ'S prime minister may offer amnesty to insurgents and could extend it to those who killed American troops in an apparent bid to lure Saddam Hussein loyalists from their campaign of violence.

With the installation of an interim government in Baghdad, President George Bush is banking on an untested group of Iraqi officials to achieve results that the US-led occupation could not deliver: security, stability and economic progress.

Outrage flashed across the Middle East as TV stations showed graphic images of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by smiling US military police.

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S capture lifted a huge political weight from President George W Bush after months of rising casualties and growing doubts about his handling of Iraq.

A LEADING Pentagon architect of the US war on Iraq was in Baghdad yesterday as a panel of experts warned Washington had three months to create law and order or risk descent into chaos.

All visitors travelling to the US on visas are to be fingerprinted and photographed from next year in an attempt stop terrorists entering the country.

THE Bush administration says it will seek a diplomatic solution to the stand-off over North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons programmes. But the communist nation’s leaders routinely accuse Washington of plotting their downfall.

WHAT does it take to create havoc in the capital of the most powerful country in the world? Anthrax? An orange terror alert? Massive anti-war protests? Another day like September 11, 2001? These days, it’s a disgruntled farmer in a tractor.

Heightened activity detected by spy satellites around a North Korean nuclear plant has intelligence analysts wondering whether the government is rushing to produce nuclear weapons - or just bluffing.