RAMALLAH, Oct. 6 – An independent Palestinian academic said Monday that he will stand for presidential elections if they were held in January.Abdel Satar Qassem, politics professor in Nablus’ Al-Najjah University, made the decision as the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or parliament, refused to extend Abbas’term after it ends …

GAZA, Oct. 6 – Palestinian lawmakers from the Islamic Hamas movement in Gaza decided Monday that the presidential term of President Mahmoud Abbas would legally end on Jan. 8, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has asked Japan and NATO allies who have refused to send troops to Afghanistan to pay the estimated $17 billion needed to build up the Afghan army, according to U.S. defense officials.

KABUL (Reuters) – The war in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily and success is only possible through political means including dialogue between all relevant parties, the United Nation’s top official in the country said on Monday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO’s top operations commander hit out Monday at allies resisting his call for the alliance to use more aggressive tactics against Afghan drug production.

KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani authorities have begun expelling Afghan refugees from a tribal region that has become the main battleground between troops and fighters linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda, officials said on Monday.

BHAKKAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 12 people and wounded around 30 including a leading Pakistani opposition politician and member of the minority Shi’ite Muslim community on Monday, police said.

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) – A ring of scaffolding around charred bricks is all that now stands in place of the golden dome that adorned one of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrines.

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan began registering voters on Monday for elections due next year that will test support for President Hamid Karzai and democracy itself which is threatened by a virulent Taliban insurgency in which thousands have died.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats voted mostly along ethnic party lines in a local election Sunday, keeping them in power some 13 years after the war, preliminary results showed early Monday.