World News

A worker power washes an air boat at the decontamination unit at the Deepwater Horizon Response Plaquemines Branch Sept. 2, 2010.

photo: US Coast Guard / PO3 Charly Hengen

BP spill costs hit $ 8bn as crews unearth clues
read more The Times of India

WASHINGTON: British oil giant BP has spent $ 8 billion to battle the Gulf of Mexico disaster, the company has revealed as its crews retrieved key evidence from the seabed. Robotic submarines recorded the delicate operation as engineers raised a failed blowout preventer from the ruptured well and began lifting it to the surface in order to hand it...

People rush for cover soon after an explosion during a Shiite procession in Quetta, Pakistan on Friday, Sept. 3, 2010.

photo: AP / Arshad Butt

Bomb kills 54 in Pakistan, Taliban threatens US
read more Khaleej Times

A suicide bomber struck a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this week and piling pressure on a US-backed govt. Pakistan's Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast and said it would launch attacks in the United States and Europe "very soon" - repeating a threat to strike...

A car damaged by rubble from a building is seen following a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in central Christchurch, New Zealand, early Saturday, Sept. 4, 2010.

photo: AP / NZPA, David Alexander

Emergency declared after 7.1 quake hits New Zealand
read more The Star

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities declared a state of emergency after a major earthquake hit New Zealand's second biggest city, Christchurch, early on Saturday, bringing down power lines, ripping up roads and wrecking building facades, but authorities reported no deaths. A quake-damaged car is pictured in Christchurch September 4, 2010. A major...

Gertrudes Nunes leaves a court in Lisbon, Friday, Sept. 3 2010 following the verdict of a major child sex abuse trial that has lasted almost six years.

photo: AP / Francisco Seco

Six jail terms in Portugal child abuse trial
read more Inquirer

LISBONA Portuguese court sentenced six men to jail on Friday for sexually abusing dozens of children at a state-run care home and procuring boys to be raped at orgies, at the end of a marathon abuse trial. The convicts included a star television presenter, a former ambassador, a doctor, a lawyer and a former administrator at the Casa Pia...

International Mideast envoy Tony Blair talks at a news conference at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt following his meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009.

photo: AP / Amr Nabil

Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair
read more BBC News

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the...

File - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, center, holds the hands of Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, left, the top Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, and a unidentified member of the Christian church delegation, as they leave Arafat's office in the West Bank town of Ramallah Monday, Dec. 24, 2001.

photo: AP / Nasser Nasser

Palestinians, Christians and the Politics of Compassion
read more WorldNews.com

Article by WorldNews.com correspondent Dallas Darling. Even now as Presbyterian leaders prophetically issue statements calling for the U.S. to end its military aid to Israel unless Tel Aviv stops it settlement activities in occupied land that belongs to Palestinians, they might want to recall what Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer wrote in his book "The...

Ban Ki-moon, left, Secretary General of United Nations listens to British Foreign Minister David Miliband, right, who chaired a Security Council meeting at U.N. Headquarters Tuesday May 20, 2008.

photo: AP / David Karp

Gilad Atzmon: The Lowest Of The Low
read more WorldNews.com

Millions of ballot papers have been sent out yesterday to those eligible to vote in the Labour leadership election. Symbolically enough, this happened the day Tony Blair, the British PM who launched the criminal war in Iraq, published his controversial memoirs. I am not holding my breath for the Labour party to make the right decision. Clearly, the...

President Barack Obama holds a working dinner with, clockwise from left, President Hosni Mubarek of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell, Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and Tony Blair, the international Middle east envoy and former British Prime Minsiter, in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, Sept. 1, 2010.

photo: White House / Pete Souza

Israeli and Palestinian leaders face critics of talks
read more The Independent

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned Friday from the resumption of Mideast negotiations in Washington to confront internal opposition to his peace moves, just as his Palestinian counterpart faced harsh criticism for agreeing to the talks at all. Analysts on both sides questioned the ability and desire of their leaders to negotiate a...

Volunteers carry injured people following an explosion during a Shiite procession in Quetta, Pakistan on Friday, Sept. 3, 2010.

photo: AP / Arshad Butt

Deadly bombing at Pakistan rally
read more Al Jazeera

At least 22 people have been killed in a large suicide blast in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, police said. The bomber struck a rally of about 2,000 people who had gathered on Friday in support of a separate homeland for Palestinians. Four journalists were among those killed, and another 40 people were injured...