This was incredibly close.

The interference of Russia in Ukraine cannot be condoned.

THE longstanding Irish policy of neutrality, an ongoing balancing act of several competing pressures — nationalism, the post-colonial relation with Britain, a burgeoning involvement with European politics — came under particular scrutiny in 1983.

An Iraq War veteran charged with murdering former US Navy SEAL sniper-turned author Chris Kyle and a friend turned a gun on the pair while they were at a Texas shooting range, authorities said.

The non-profit aid group founded by Hollywood star Sean Penn in the aftermath of Haiti’s deadly 2010 earthquake will oversee demolition of the wrecked National Palace, the Haitian government said.

US President Barack Obama has arrived on the Indonesian island of Bali for a summit of East Asian nations at the end of a nine-day Asia-Pacific trip.

A BRONZE buttock that was “liberated” from a statue of Saddam Hussein, famously toppled after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, has attracted global attention ahead of an auction later this month, its owner said.

Pentagon chief Leon Panetta will end the ban on gays serving openly in America’s armed services today, certifying that repealing the 17-year-old law will not hurt the military’s ability to fight, officials said.

The US military said it is accepting openly gay recruits for the first time in the country’s history, after a judge upheld an order ending a controversial ban on homosexual troops.

US marines stormed a pirate-held ship off the Somalia coast today and took nine prisoners.

A Royal Marine has been killed in a blast in Sangin in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said today.

A British soldier became the 100th member of UK forces to be killed in the Sangin area of southern Afghanistan today.

The American military death toll in Afghanistan reached 1,000 today with more casualties expected in a summer offensive against the Taliban.

THE 97-year-old American’s memories of comrades blown away on either side of him on Iwo Jima are a world away from his vision of the island after returning to commemorate one of World War II’s fiercest battles.

Elite US Marine reconnaissance teams were dropped behind Taliban lines by helicopter today as coalition forces stepped up operations in Afghanistan to break resistance in the besieged insurgent stronghold of Marjah.

Three more Afghan civilians have been killed in the assault on a southern Taliban stronghold, Nato forces said today.

Sniper teams attacked US Marines and Afghan troops across the Taliban haven of Marjah in Afghanistan as several gun battles erupted on the third day of a major offensive to seize the extremists’ southern heartland.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan are to push forward with their anti-Taliban offensive, despite the deaths of 12 civilians and a British soldier.

US defence secretary Robert Gates said the US would not have an expanded policing role in quake-ravaged Haiti, but troops could defend themselves and civilians or foreigners if lawlessness boiled over.

FAILURE in Afghanistan would mean a Taliban takeover of the country and “have severe consequences for the United States and the world”, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday as the Obama administration set out to sell its new war strategy on Capitol Hill.

US MARINES hiked through searing heat taking fire from small pockets of militants after landing in the Taliban-controlled southern region of tree-lined fields, mud homes and crisscrossing waterways in the first major operation under President Barack Obama’s strategy to stabilise Afghanistan.

US MARINES are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition that is growing but still short on manpower.

Two dogs belonging to US actor Ving Rhames apparently mauled a man to death at the star’s home, authorities said.

LEE Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone in assassinating US President John F Kennedy, an Italian weapons study has suggested.

Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched peacefully through the streets of two Shiite holy cities today, the fourth anniversary of Baghdad’s fall.

US Marines fought with suspected insurgents in Ramadi, killing six Iraqis - one man and five females, including an infant – the US military said.

The US Marines are drawing up plans to send back to Iraq at least some reserve combat battalions that have already served one tour there, the first time such units would be returned to the war.

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is being forced to watch his appearance as the Devil's gay lover in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut "repeatedly", according to the cult cartoon's creator Matt Stone.

US MARINES being investigated over the killings of two dozen Iraqis last autumn in Haditha, most if not all of them civilians, appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence, the New York Times newspaper reported yesterday.

Hollywood actor Owen Wilson almost joined the US Marines when his debut movie received the worst test audience rating in the history of studio Columbia Pictures.

I TAKE exception to the letter from Lt Col Bill Hurley, formerly of the US Marines (Irish Examiner, June 13).

US Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, received and was reviewing the investigative report related to allegations that US Marines were involved in an alleged massacre and cover-up in Haditha last November, the military said today.

In the wake of the Haditha investigation, the top US general in Iraq today ordered American commanders to conduct core values training on moral and ethical standards on the battlefield.

International relief poured into Indonesia’s earthquake disaster zone today, but for many of the estimated 647,000 displaced people, aid was not arriving quickly enough and healthcare remained patchy.

HUNDREDS of foreign troops struggled to keep East Timor from tipping into civil war yesterday amid widening violence, including a mob attack that killed six relatives of a government minister and set his house ablaze.

Gunmen kidnapped 10 people in two villages in northern Iraq today, but US and Iraqi forces rescued seven of them in a gun battle, police said.

Aerial photographs spotted what is believed to be the roof of a Philippines elementary school swamped by a landslide, and rescue workers will undertake a risky mission to check it, the provincial governor said today.

Recovery teams resumed their search at the site of a buried Philippine village today, amid fears that time has run out for finding survivors of a massive landslide.

Uncertain if they were even digging in the right place, rescue workers in the Philippines today tried to find a mud-swamped school mid fears that time already may have run out for finding survivors of a massive landslide.

High-tech equipment has detected sounds at the site of a Philippine school buried by a landslide, US and Malaysian officials said today.

An Israeli rescue team pulled two more bodies from a collapsed building early today, bringing the death toll to 16 as police search for the owners of the building who reportedly rushed construction workers to put up new floors even before concrete on the lower level had set properly.

Emergency workers in Nairobi pulled four survivors from a collapsed building today as rescue teams from Israel, Britain and the US arrived in the Kenyan capital, but the death toll rose to 14 despite their efforts.

Kenyan rescuers and soldiers cut through layers of concrete slab early today to free an unknown number of construction workers still trapped after a building collapsed in central Nairobi, killing at least 11 and injuring dozens.

A sort-of war film in which there is little fighting until the film has run its course. War isn't so much hell as boring.