AFGHANISTAN

Yousuf Raza Gilani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan also vowed to significantly increase the volume of trade between Turkey and Pakistan.

President Obama and U.S. NATO allies agreed Monday to end all combat missions in Afghanistan and transfer security responsibilities to the country's armed forces next summer after more than a decade of war.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to announce that he will not be extending the mission of Canada's 950 military trainers currently in Afghanistan after international forces leave the country in 2014.

NATO will continue to work to bolster security in Afghanistan even as the international community gradually cedes control of combat operations, President Obama said Monday at the NATO summit in Chicago.

The two sides have so far failed to agree on a strategy to re-open the vital supply routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which have been closed since a U.S. air-strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.

NATO leaders met in Chicago on Sunday to discuss a way out of a wavering commitment in Afghanistan, amid the backdrop of a city brimming with protesters, a foiled terrorist plot, a bombing that killed two NATO soldiers, and President Barack Obama's own misgivings about the military action in Afghanistan laid bare in a lengthy New York Times report.

There are currently about 130,000 foreign troops in the country, with Americans accounting for about 90,000 of them.

The upcoming NATO summit in Chicago this Sunday will be dominated by discussion of the alliance's transition out of a combat role in Afghanistan to an advisory one, and particularly, who is going to foot the bill amid a global climate of fiscal austerity to ensure it all goes over smoothly.

The chairman of the Family Research Institute, while arguing it is possible for individuals to choose their sexual preference, admitted he was attracted to men as a child.

In bilateral discussions on Friday, British Prime Minster David Cameron is expected to urge newly elected French President François Hollande to renege on campaign promises to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012.

Afghanistan, bracing for a potential sharp decline in financial support from the West amid fears of a fresh military offensive by the Taliban insurgents, has demanded $4.1 billion a year for its security forces after the foreign troops pull out in 2014, ahead of the NATO summit starting Sunday.

Iran continues to send arms shipments to Syria in violation of a U.N. Security Council ban on weapons exports, according to a draft report by a U.N. panel released Wednesday.

Islamabad has ordered government officials to end a supply route blockade against NATO forces, said Pakistan Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira on Wednesday.

While the Obama administration rejected to several section's of the House's proposed NDAA bill, a controversial indefinite detention provision for terrorism suspects was not among them.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Wednesday said the country will provide Afghanistan with 150 million euros annually to support its security forces. The funding will start in 2015, the year after NATO-led forces are scheduled to leave the country.

The invitation came a day after Islamabad proposed re-opening supply routes to Afghanistan, shut six months ago after a U.S. drone strike mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border.

Real Housewives of Orange Country alum Vicki Gunvalson is going to be a grandma! Her daughter, Briana Wolfsmith, is pregnant. Briana is pregnant and just about four months along, one source told Us Weekly. The joyful news comes on the heels of news of Briana's impromptu marriage to Ryan Culberson.

Ayrault, 62, has never before held a ministerial office but has served as a politician, including mayor of the city of Nantes, continuously since 1986

The Pakistani government is considering reopening its Afghan border to NATO troop supplies, ahead of the military alliance's summit.

Nine people were killed and several more wounded on Monday morning when a bomb exploded at a busy marketplace in northern Afghanistan.

Explosives planted on a bicycle killed nine people in the relatively peaceful Faryab province of northern Afghanistan on Monday, including a provincial council member, police said, amid an increase in violence across the country.