WASHINGTON – Despite rising civilian deaths in Afghanistan’s counter-terror war — and rising criticism — a U.S. general suggested Tuesday that coalition commanders do not need to change the way they operate.

KABUL (AFP) – The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said it was investigating a report that US and Afghan soldiers tied a detainee to a military vehicle and threatened to drag him across a road.

Southeast European countries should co-operate to form a regional energy market, with financial and technical assistance from the EU and Russia, participants at a Southeast European energy forum in Zagreb agreed on Sunday (June 24th).

A Sarajevo-based NGO that has been compiling a database of victims killed during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) released the results last week, after three years of data collection.

Al Qaeda’s number two urged all Muslims in a tape posted on Monday to support the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in its battles with President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, which he said was planning to invade Gaza.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are to go to Iran “as early as practicable” to resolve issues over Tehran’s nuclear programme, the UN nuclear watchdog said Monday.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that Sudan’s “history” of backsliding on commitments means that sanction pressure must be maintained, despite its acceptance of a planned larger peacekeeping force for Darfur.

Lebanon linked a bomb attack that killed six UN peacekeepers in the south of the country to a deadly standoff between Al Qaeda-inspired gunmen and the army in the north where two more soldiers were shot dead on Monday.

A suicide bomber killed six Iraqi tribal leaders opposed to Al Qaeda when he blew himself up at a busy Baghdad hotel, in one of four attacks on Monday that killed 50 people in all, police said.

King Abdullah on Monday called for launching a “real” Mideast peace process and an end to Palestinian-Israeli violence, following Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip.