PARIS (Reuters) – Britain will provide about 600 million pounds ($1.17 billion) in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan through 2012/2013, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Thursday. “In the period up to 2012/13, the U.K. will be committing about 600 million pounds to the Afghan reconstruction effort,” Miliband told reporters …

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed one Palestinian militant near a border crossing with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Thursday, medical workers said. Gunmen from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, and another militant group attacked an Israeli army position near the Erez …

Visiting Iraqi Defense Minister Lieutenant General Abdul Qadir Mohammed Jassim Obeidi conferred on Sunday with his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar on expansion of defense cooperation between the two countries.