Iraq’s cabinet has submitted to parliament a draft bill that would ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party joining the civil service and military, the government said on Wednesday.

In a hotel room in southern Russia, Lydia and Pavel Izvozchikov are praying their son will be found alive somewhere in the shallow waters at the mouth of the Black Sea.

Wearing blue camouflage fatigues and crooning about Islamic holy war, the five members of Hamas’s Protectors of the Homeland police band are trying to boost morale in Gaza with an arsenal of anti-Israel numbers.

Turkey’s prime minister denied on Wednesday carrying out aerial strikes this week against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, but the government reaffirmed its readiness for a cross-border operation if deemed necessary.

Georgia will lift its state of emergency in two days, Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze said on Wednesday, but a court order looked set to keep the main opposition television station off the air.

Iran’s intelligence minister accused a former nuclear negotiator on Wednesday of supplying information to Britain in violation of the Islamic Republic’s security interests, an Iranian news agency reported.

NATO said on Wednesday it had no evidence of systematic torture of detainees it had handed to Afghan authorities after a rights group accused the force of breaking its own rules by not ensuring prisoners’ safety.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday they had charged seven Polish soldiers over the shooting to death of six Afghan civilians.

Following are security developments in Iraq at 9:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday.* denotes new or updated item. * ISKANDARIYA – At least two people were killed and six wounded when a suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives infiltrated a meeting of Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs in Iskandariya, a …

Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships killed up to 10 militants on Wednesday in a northwestern tourist region where pro-Taliban rebels have been infiltrating and expanding their influence.