AFGHANISTAN

President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed the United States would keep relentless pressure on al Qaeda and ensure extremist networks, which he called a principle threat, do not find safe havens overseas.

NATO forces said Tuesday they had killed more that 100 fighters in a huge weekend battle in eastern Afghanistan in which eight Americans died, the deadliest firefight for U.S. troops in more than a year.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates blamed the Taliban's revival on a past failure to deploy enough troops to Afghanistan and said U.S. forces would not withdraw whatever the result of President Barack Obama's strategy review.

The new Pakistani Taliban chief released a new video clip Sunday on Pakistani television, vowing to retaliate against the U.S. and Pakistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday called for patience and discretion as President Barack Obama decides how to conduct the war in Afghanistan, urging advisers to speak candidly but privately on strategy.

Foreign and Afghan forces launched an assault on Monday against a group of Taliban in an area of eastern Afghanistan where the militants killed eight American soldiers at the weekend, an official said.

Afghanistan's U.N.-backed election watchdog will treat presidential candidates as equally likely to be guilty of vote fraud in suspicious cases, new rules issued on Monday show, a move that may ensure a win for Hamid Karzai.

Norway has retained its status as the world's most desirable country to live in, according to U.N. data released on Monday, which ranks sub-Saharan African states afflicted by war and HIV/AIDS as the least attractive places.

The United States wants to give Japan's new government time to review a contentious agreement on rejigging U.S. troops in the country, but thinks an existing deal is the best solution, U.S. ambassador John Roos said on Friday.

Gun shots ring sharply across a valley littered with rusting hulks of Soviet tanks as Afghan soldiers crouch down and open fire into the dusty haze.

U.S. President Barack Obama met the man heading U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, Friday, a White House spokesman said.

The United States should provide information about top militants in Pakistan, a government minister said on Thursday, as Washington stepped up pressure on Islamabad to go after Taliban leaders.

The United States said it held the highest level direct talks with Iran in three decades on Thursday to try to put to rest Western suspicions Tehran is planning a nuclear bomb.

Six world powers held talks with Iran on Thursday that U.S. officials said would need to convince them Tehran was prepared to show it was not hiding plans for a nuclear bomb.

NATO's chief assured President Barack Obama on Tuesday of the alliance's commitment to the Afghan war as the U.S. administration weighs sending more troops to try to turn the tide on a resurgent Taliban.

The Afghan-born man at the center of a U.S. anti-terrorism probe pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to set off a bomb in the United States, and a federal judge ordered him held without bail.

If President Barack Obama decides to send 30,000 to 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, he will be doing it against the advice of some advisers and leading Democrats in Congress.

A roadside bomb killed 30 people in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said, in the deadliest strike on civilians since a NATO air raid earlier this month.

After his efforts at diplomacy on the international stage last week, President Barack Obama faces some particularly daunting foreign policy decisions about the Afghan war, a nuclear Iran and an elusive Middle East peace.

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan planned to offer options for policymakers to try to stem Taliban gains, including sending up to 30,000 to 40,000 additional combat troops and trainers, according to defense and congressional officials.

German voters gave Chancellor Angela Merkel a second term on Sunday and a mandate to partner with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) in a government that will rein in the role of the state in Europe's largest economy.