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.

PAKISTAN’S defence secretary said yesterday that a month-long offensive to crush Taliban fighters in north-west Swat could end within days, as fierce fighting spilled into a nearby tribal area.

North Korea defiantly test-fired another short-range missile today and warned it could take “self-defence” over tough sanctions being considered by the UN Security Council.

The Obama administration is trying to protect top Bush administration military officials from lawsuits brought by British prisoners who say they were tortured while being held at Guantanamo Bay.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush has his eye firmly on history, believing he and his actions will be vindicated in the coming years and decades.

“CHINA’S rivers are poisoned, their air is putrid. If C02 emissions are something that worried them, they’d have tackled it 30 or 40 years ago.”

US and Iraqi forces arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr’s top aides today in Baghdad, his office said, as pressure increases on the radical Shiite cleric’s militia ahead of a planned security sweep aimed at stemming the sectarian violence ransacking the capital.

US President George Bush today met with a bipartisan group seeking consensus on a new approach for the war in Iraq amid widespread agreement that the administration's current efforts have not worked well enough or fast enough.

AFTER years of defending his secretary of defence, US President George W Bush last night announced Donald H Rumsfeld’s resignation within hours of the Democrats’ triumph in congressional elections.

Defence attorneys requested a gag order today that applies even to US President George Bush and other high-ranking federal officials in the case of a former Army private accused over the rape and killing of a young Iraqi.

Denouncing Iran’s successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the international community, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today the UN Security Council must consider “strong steps” to induce Tehran to change course.

The Bush administration is sending a stay-the-course message on Iraq on the third anniversary of the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, although a top military commander acknowledges the insurgency is more fierce than expected.

An Australian TV network today broadcast photographs and video clips it said were previously unpublished images of the alleged abuse of Iraqis held in US military custody at Abu Ghraib prison.

The US met North Korea yesterday on halting its nuclear weapons programme and withdrew a threat to try to punish the North Koreans soon with UN sanctions.

China today asked Washington to stop an effort by US lawmakers to establish a military training programme for rival Taiwan.

PORTRAIT of US President George W Bush using monkeys to form his image that was banished from a New York art show last week amid charges of censorship has been projected on a giant billboard in Manhattan.

US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has decided to personally sign condolence letters to the families of American troops killed in action rather than letting a machine affix his signature.

Afghan and international forces laid a security ring around Kabul today as dignitaries travelled from around the world for the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan’s first popularly-elected president.

In a candid interview with his time in office running out, US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged differences with others in the Bush administration and suggesting that the disputes centred on his preference for diplomacy over force to resolve problems.

A SOLDIER already convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal testified yesterday that fellow Army reservist Private Lynndie England was a willing participant in creating the “human pyramid” of naked Iraqi detainees shown in infamous photographs from Iraq.

The US military judge hearing charges of prisoner abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison today rejected a defence request for Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to submit to an interview, but said he would reconsider if the defence could show a Rumsfeld link to the case.

The Beastie Boys have devised an online video game for their fans to play - with a strong political slant.

The al-Qaida cell that kidnapped and killed American Paul M. Johnson Jr. claimed today that sympathisers in the kingdom’s security forces supplied it with police uniforms and vehicles and set up fake checkpoints to facilitate last week’s abduction.

The father of an American beheaded in Iraq said he holds US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld responsible for his son’s death and called for his resignation.

The Iraq prisoner abuse scandal shifted to the question of whether the Bush administration set up a legal foundation that opened the door for the mistreatment.

THIRTY-THREE years ago, Donald Rumsfeld, then a domestic policy official in the Nixon administration, became involved in foreign policy by volunteering to run the post Vietnam War reconstruction effort.

Americans are expecting more shocking photographs and searing public debate as the Bush administration works to calm the storm over US soldiers’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush issued a strong endorsement yesterday of embattled Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, telling him after a meeting at the Pentagon: “You are doing a superb job.”

President George Bush issued a strong endorsement of embattled Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld today, telling him after a meeting at the Pentagon: “You are doing a superb job.”

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was heckled at a Senate Committee today as he apologised to Iraqis tortured by US military in a Baghdad prison.

More than 2,000 Iraqis demonstrated in front of Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison today, chanting “democracy doesn’t mean killing innocent people” and demanding that the United States apologise for humiliating Iraqi prisoners.

THE voices of children marked the profound horror and grief of September 11 yesterday, joining in song at Ground Zero and reading the names of 2,792 loved ones who died there exactly two years ago.

The voices of children marked the profound horror and grief of September 11 today, joining in song at Ground Zero and reading the names of 2,792 loved ones who died there exactly two years ago.

The US, still horrified by the September 11 attacks, will mark the second anniversary tomorrow with moments of silence and bursts of patriotic song, by gathering in peaceful memorial gardens and busy public squares, and by reaching out to each other.

President Bush has told the Pentagon to position an "appropriate" number of US troops off coast of war torn Liberia.

In a cassette tape marking the 35th anniversary of the Baath Party coup, a voice said to be that of Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to continue a “holy war” against US forces.

THE United States yesterday held up the capture of a veteran Palestinian guerrilla chief in Iraq as proof of a link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism.

American special forces today raided the Baghdad home of the female microbiologist nicknamed Dr Germ who ran Iraq’s secret biological laboratory.

US SECRETARY of State Colin Powell said yesterday the United States had concerns about the policies of Iran and Syria but it had no "war plan" to attack them or other nations.

US MARINES stormed into Saddam Hussein’s final stronghold yesterday, seizing control of his hometown Tikrit, effectively sealing the US and British victory in the Iraq war and allowing the Bush administration to issue some sombre warnings to Syria.

US-LED forces are providing security against looting in Iraqi cities and are working to prevent further lawlessness, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell today reaffirmed the Bush administration’s determination to oust Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

IT is 2004, and the first President George Bush Snr is in a Belgian court for alleged war crimes committed during the 1991 Gulf War. Back in Washington, his son worries he may be next.

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S Republican Guards were headed on a collision course with American forces south of Baghdad last night in the first sign of an Iraqi offensive out of the capital.