HILLARY CLINTON

Vice President Joe Biden, the most senior U.S. official to visit Lebanon in 26 years, took a swipe at Hezbollah on Friday, but denied seeking to sway an election that may unseat a Western-backed coalition.

Diplomats and journalists were barred again from the court inside Insein prison in Myanmar, a day after the military government opened the trial for the first time since it began on Monday.

The American man at the center of the trial against Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi swam to her house after having a vision that her life was in danger, Suu Kyi's lawyers said on Thursday.

Pakistan's allies promised $224 million in aid for about 1.5 million people displaced by an offensive against the Taliban after the government warned that the militants could exploit a failure to help.

The United States will provide $110 million in emergency aid to Pakistan, the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced fresh pressure on Tuesday from the United States to freeze Jewish settlement activity that Palestinians see as an impediment to peace.

The United States plans to give Pakistan about $100 million in humanitarian aid to help people who have fled fighting between government forces and Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, two sources familiar with the plan said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Friday renewed U.S. sanctions against Myanmar's military government, saying its actions and policies continued to pose a serious threat to U.S. interests.

Western critics slammed Myanmar's ruling generals on Friday for pressing trumped-up new charges against detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but the move drew only a mild rebuke from Asian neighbors.

Iran has released an American journalist jailed for four months on Monday after an appeals court suspended her sentence on charges of spying for the United States.

U.S. President Barack Obama will pay his first visit to Russia as president on July 6-8, the Kremlin said on Monday.

President Barack Obama warned on Wednesday of more violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but said his government was still committed to defeating al Qaeda, while trying to avoid civilian deaths on those countries.

Pakistani forces battled Taliban fighters on Monday as the militants denounced the army and government as U.S. stooges and said a peace pact would end unless the government halted its offensive.

President Barack Obama presents his strategy for defeating al Qaeda to the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday amid growing U.S. concern it is losing the war and neither is a reliable ally.

Conventional wisdom says the United States has to bring concrete commitment to international climate talks in Copenhagen in December or no other country will act.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she expected intense sessions when the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan come to Washington for three-nation talks next week.

Mexico said a new flu virus has killed up to 149 people and it ordered all schools to close across the country on Monday as the disease spread in the United States, Canada and Europe, raising fears of a pandemic.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed on Sunday that the United States would never sell out Lebanon in any deal with Syria and she urged the Lebanese to hold an open and fair election in June.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday touting a new security strategy for the region as international alarm spreads over Taliban advances.

A Pakistani Taliban commander ordered his men to withdraw from Buner district on Friday, amid growing alarm in the United States over the Taliban creeping nearer to the capital of the nuclear-armed Muslim state.

Pakistan's government has abdicated to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and the country now poses a mortal threat to the world, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.