AFGHANISTAN

Britain's attorney general ordered an investigation on Thursday into whether the security services played any role in the torture of a British resident recently released from the U.S. military's Guantanamo prison.

President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday proposed slimming down his fiscal 2010 budget to $3.45 trillion from $3.55 trillion amid bipartisan concerns about it exploding the deficit.

Russia backs the idea of talks between Afghanistan's government and moderate elements of the Taliban, a senior Russian diplomat told Interfax news agency on Wednesday.

Ronald Reagan was known as the great communicator. George W. Bush was the self-styled decider. President Barack Obama could easily be called the salesman-in-chief.

If the United States is to succeed in Afghanistan, it is going to have to engage in dialogue with Taliban-led insurgents, according to many analysts with close knowledge of the region.

The United States met NATO allies on Monday to outline its policy review for Afghanistan after President Barack Obama said it would contain an exit strategy and greater emphasis on economic development.

President Barack Obama plans a significant increase in the size of the Afghan police force, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said on Saturday.

Opposition fears of an unfair election in Afghanistan this year are well-founded, and a rigged poll would fuel political instability and undermine support for democracy, a top U.N. envoy has warned.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not hiding in Pakistan's Baluchistan province whose people will resist any U.S. attempt to extend its war against militancy there, the province's chief minister said on Friday.

A plan to expand a controversial U.S. ballistic-missile shield into Eastern Europe is being scrutinized as part of a 2010 budget request to be sent to Congress next month, the Pentagon's chief financial officer told Congress on Wednesday.

NATO's secretary-general said on Wednesday 4,000 more soldiers were needed to secure Afghanistan's presidential election in August and to make sure the vote was credible and fair.

A suicide bomber killed 11 people, including nine police officers, in southern Afghanistan on Monday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks against foreign troops in recent weeks, officials said.

Shabana Ahmadzai, 19, and Sara Bahmanpour, 20, like to hang out on a social network a fraction the size of Facebook. Their portraits enhanced by makeup or anime images, the women are logging on at Muxlim, a lifestyle community for Muslims.

Pakistan's year-old civilian government sought a compromise to appease opposition leaders and a lawyers movement on Friday as police detained hundreds of activists in a bid to stifle a nationwide protest.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban militants recovered 24 bodies and were searching for more on Friday, hours after suspected U.S. drones destroyed a camp in Pakistan's northwestern region, militants and officials said.

Hundreds of black-suited Pakistani lawyers and flag-waving opposition activists launched a cross-country protest on Thursday, as the year-old civilian coalition government scrambled for ways to avert a showdown.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told regional leaders on Wednesday that the capitalist system was close to collapse.

Iran's top military commander said the new U.S. administration was just as warmongering as its predecessor, but that the United States could not afford to attack Iran, an Iranian news agency reported on Tuesday.

A United Nations investigator urged U.S. allies from Britain to Pakistan on Tuesday to fully investigate whether they helped in secret renditions that led to the illegal torture or disappearance of terror suspects.

The killing of two soldiers by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland will not be allowed to derail the peace process in the British-ruled province, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday.

Iran said on Monday the United States was failing in Afghanistan and that a new approach was needed, four days after Washington said it would invite Tehran to an international conference to discuss its neighbor.