Jack Kim

Egyptian youth leaders moved to set up a new political party on Thursday in the post-Mubarak era while a committee worked on changing the constitution to prepare for elections promised by military rulers within six months.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday threatened to boycott presidential and parliamentary elections if rival President Robert Mugabe called them for 2011.

Hundreds of supporters of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi rallied on Thursday but there were reports of unrest in several locations as the opposition called for a day of anti-government protests.

A top Chinese official has backed ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's plans to hand power to his son, the North's state media said on Tuesday, hailing the successful solution to allow continued socialist rule.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday Pakistan must respect the diplomatic immunity of a U.S. consular employee jailed for shooting dead two Pakistanis, in a case straining ties between the allies.

Attacks by a renegade militia in south Sudan's oil state of Jonglei have killed at least 211 people, a southern minister said Tuesday, doubling earlier estimates of the death count.

Iranian lawmakers called for the death penalty on Tuesday for opposition leaders they accused of fomenting unrest after a rally in which a least one person was killed and dozens were wounded, state media said.

Thousands of Shi'ite protesters marched into the capital of Bahrain on Tuesday after a man was killed in clashes between police and mourners at a funeral for a demonstrator shot dead at an earlier anti-government rally.

An Italian judge ordered Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday to stand trial on charges of paying for sex with an underage girl and abuse of office, according to a statement from the judge's office.

Egypt's military said on Tuesday it hoped to hand over to an elected government in six months, while the Muslim Brotherhood said emergency law should be lifted and political prisoners freed now.

Hundreds of anti-government demonstrators clashed with supporters of Yemen's president on Monday south of the capital, with both sides hurling rocks as protests escalated in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.

A Pakistani court charged a police guard Monday with the murder of a politician who opposed the country's anti-blasphemy laws, a killing that exposed deep fissures in Pakistani society.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday he had no intention of stepping down and dismissed a weekend demonstration by thousands of women across Italy over his involvement in a sex scandal.

A suicide bomber killed at least two people in an assault on a downtown Kabul hotel Monday, the second attack in the capital in less than three weeks, Afghan and Western officials said.

Bahraini police fired teargas and rubber bullets to break up protests on Monday in Shi'ite villages that ring the capital Manama, dampening a Day of Rage stimulated by popular upheaval in Egypt and Tunisia.

The Palestinian cabinet resigned on Monday, in an apparent attempt by President Mahmoud Abbas to demonstrate political reform in the wake of the popular uprising in Egypt.

Egypt's new military rulers have given indications of new moves to share power with civilians and rapidly to amend the constitution by popular referendum, opposition activists and a British minister said on Monday.

Kenya Airways reported an 8.9 percent rise in passenger volumes in the final quarter of 2010 after introducing new routes and more frequent flights to Juba in south Sudan.

Morocco's sole sugar refiner Cosumar has not been able to meet interim targets of a plan to raise local beet and cane contribution to overall domestic sugar demand to 55 percent by 2013 from 36 percent.

Nigeria distributed 414.3 billion naira from federal accounts to its three tiers of government for January, up 0.85 percent on the previous month, the acting accountant general said on Monday.

Kenya has raised retail fuel prices to 98.08 shillings per litre of petrol sold in the capital for the next 30 days, from 95.60 shillings, the Daily Nation reported on Monday.

The Lusaka Stock Exchange said on Monday it had rejected a move by Indian group Bharti Airtel's to delist its Celtel Zambia unit, without giving a reason.

Two large international banks suspended operations in Ivory Coast on Monday as a power struggle following a disputed presidential election tightened its grip on the economy of the world's top cocoa grower.

South African police fired rubber bullets at striking truck drivers on Monday after they stoned vehicles transporting goods in Johannesburg and pulled drivers out of their cabs.

Egypt's military delivered an ultimatum on Monday to dozens of committed protesters in Tahrir Square, nerve centre of a movement that toppled Hosni Mubarak, to leave and let life return to normal or face arrest.

Supporters in Haiti of exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide demonstrated for his return on Wednesday as the country nervously waited to hear who would contest the presidency in a March run-off election.

Iran has witnessed a dramatic increase in executions so far in 2011, United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said Wednesday and her office said the rate was three times that of last year.

U.S. and Afghan military officials hope that months of heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan have enabled them to head off a bloody offensive from the Taliban this spring as U.S. forces prepare to begin their withdrawal.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, eying protests that threaten to topple Egypt's long-time ruler, indicated on Wednesday he would leave office when his current term ends in 2013, after three decades in power.