Clearer path to coalition for PM as two main parties lead the way

Israelis are voting in elections following a campaign focused on economic issues such as the high cost of living, rather than fears of a nuclear Iran or the Israeli-Arab conflict.

US president Barack Obama has told Israelis that the US has significant capabilities to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and that he was keeping all options on the table.

The Taliban has burned down scores of girls schools in recent years. It is now accused of mass poisonings but UN and Nato tests show no trace of poison and some suggest the symptoms are psychosomatic, writes Matthieu Aikins

A marriage between two 115-year-old giant tortoises has ended — but at least they won’t have to shell out on solicitors’ fees.

A Pakistani airliner with up to 127 people on board crashed in bad weather as it came in to land in Islamabad yesterday, scattering wreckage and leaving no sign of survivors.

A mother had her 13-year-old daughter’s boyfriend murdered and then persuaded the teenager to take the blame, a court in Britain heard today.

Islamic fanatics have murdered the only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet for opposing the country’s savage blasphemy laws.

THE governor of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous province was shot dead in the capital yesterday by one of his own guards, who later told interrogators that he was angry about the politician’s stance against the country’s blasphemy law, officials said.

A hardline Pakistani Islamic cleric has offered a reward to anyone who kills a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy against Islam.

ROYAL County Star, trained by Tony Martin and ridden with typical confidence by Davy Russell, landed the featured Enhance Marketing Chase at Punchestown last night.

A car bomb exploded next to an Afghan government office during a provincial council meeting today, killing at least three people and wounding 28, officials said.

GARY MEGSON can breathe again.

The stage version of the Disney hit High School Musical made its London debut last night to an audience of screaming fans.

Melanie Brown has confirmed reports she has put ex-boyfriend Eddie Murphy's name as the father on her newborn daughter's birth certificate, but denies she has already named the tot.

Eddie Murphy has said he is not sure if he is the father of former Spice Girl Mel B’s unborn child. The singer, however, says she is quite certain he is.

Harsh winter weather is threatening to cut off more than 300,000 survivors of last year’s killer South Asian earthquake from critical food supplies, the United Nations warned today, as the season’s first snows began to fall.

NAZIR Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family’s “honour” - a crime that shocked Pakistan.

A father, angry that his eldest daughter had married for love, slit her throat as she slept before killing three other daughters in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police said today.

Ariel Sharon’s main allies launched their election campaign today, saying the prime minister’s new centrist party would push for a final agreement with the Palestinians and the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.