KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S.-led forces used artillery and airstrikes to kill more than 165 insurgents and repel massed assaults on coalition troops in two strongholds of Taliban militants and Afghanistan’s rampant drug trade, officials said Wednesday.Meanwhile, two foreigners from the International Red Cross who helped free a group of South …

BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon’s parliament on Tuesday adjourned for four weeks a crucial session to elect a new president for lack of a quorum and to allow more time for MPs to reach agreement on a consensus candidate.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – US President George W. Bush told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Tuesday that his government must do more to help advance national reconciliation.

BAGHDAD (AP)- A suicide car bomber Tuesday attacked a police headquarters in Basra, killing at least three policemen, wounding 20 other people and raising fears about security in the oil-rich southern city now that British forces have withdrawn.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) – An Israeli minister said on Tuesday his country should exchange jailed Palestinian Intifada leader Marwan Barghouthi for an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza fighters more than a year ago.

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Haidar Abdel Shafi, who led the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid international peace conference in 1991, died in a Gaza City hospital early on Tuesday, officials said. He was 88.

DAMASCUS – Syrian participation in a US-sponsored peace conference could ease its troubled ties with the international community but Damascus is unlikely to back down on its terms, diplomats and officials say.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed students and professors at the US Columbia University during his short sojourn in New York before his address at the 62nd meeting of the UN General Assembly.

Talks between Iranian-and Pakistani officials for extraditing a group of hostage-takers from Pakistan will start producing its positive results today, an informed source said on Wednesday.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates said the present hues and cries by the Washington against Tehran results from Iran’s constructive cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United States’ failure in Iraq.