WORLD

The executive summary of themes to be discussed at World Economic Forum Annual Meeting to be held Jan. 26-30 2011 in Davos, Switzerland.

President Barack Obama will propose that Congress adopt a 5-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, extending a previous call for a 3-year freeze, senior administration officials said, according to reports.

A former Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) engineer has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for providing secret defense information to China, exporting technical military data and other crimes, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.

Speculation is simmering as to what, precisely, President Obama will say in tonight’s State of the Union address. The White House has been speaking in general terms about the speech, resulting in opinions flying about what, if anything, he may actually propose.

Lawyers for Silvio Berlusconi have presented evidence to magistrates from dozens of witnesses denying accounts of wild sex parties at a luxurious villa belonging to the embattled Italian prime minister.

President Barack Obama aims to rise above party politics in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, but he must prove he is serious about tackling the budget deficit that could unleash a bitter partisan fight.

Hundreds of angry protesters burnt tyres and blocked roads across Lebanon Tuesday after a Hezbollah-backed politician was named prime minister, shifting the balance of power in the country towards Syria and Iran.

A teenage suicide bomber blew himself up near a religious procession of Shi'ite Muslims in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing atlas 13 people and wounding more than 50, officials said.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed revenge on Tuesday for a suicide bombing that killed at least 35 people at Russia's busiest airport and underscored the Kremlin's failure to stem a rising tide of attacks.

U.N. investigators have found many more women than previously thought were raped by Congolese soldiers during a New Year's rampage, the United Nations said on Tuesday, and demanded harsh punishment for the perpetrators.

A presidential election in Niger aimed at returning the West African uranium exporter to civilian rule will go ahead as planned on January 31 after logistical problems were solved, the ruling junta said late on Monday.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni is against the United Nations' recognition of Alassane Ouattara as winner of Ivory Coast's election and wants an African Union probe into the poll, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

Heavy rains in South Africa have so far cost the country's farming sector over 2 billion rand in damages, an industry official said on Tuesday.

Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Tuesday pledged support for a new southern state in his first public address since the south of the country voted overwhelmingly to split from the north.

Thousands of Egyptians protested against the state on Tuesday in a rare show of strength to mark what online activists said was a Day of Wrath inspired by the revolt that toppled Tunisia's president.

President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union address for 2011 tonight at 9 pm ET in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. The president is expected to focus on 'competitiveness', and high energy costs are routinely a concern of U.S. businesses and consumers. Healthcare, taxes and the deficit tend to loom larger.

Nine Chinese cities in the southern part of the nation around the Pearl River Delta are proposed to be merged to create world’s largest mega city at a cost of $300 billion with a population of 42 million.

Billionaire Stanley Ho, the 89-year old godfather of a casino business empire based in Macau in southern China, is battling members of his own family over the control of companies that comprise his immense wealth.

As President Barack Obama makes the annual state of the union address to the nation tonight, issues like jobs, exports, competitiveness and trade deals will hog much of the limelight.

While U.S. President Barack Obama put up a preview to his much anticipated State of the Union address on the popular video sharing website, eyewitnesses of the suicide bombing at the Moscow airport uploaded footage of the blasts online.

A Virginia researcher has confessed to tampering the date on a presidential pardon penned by Abraham Lincoln, making it look as if the pardon was one of the president's final acts - thus changing its historical significance.

China refuted allegations that its J-20 stealth fighter jet had been constructed by gleaning technology from a downed US fighter.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned preposterous comments by a U.N.-appointed expert on Palestinian rights that there was a cover-up over the Sept. 11 attacks, Ban's chief of staff said on Monday.

Italy's Catholic Church jumped into the fray surrounding Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandals on Monday, warning him that politicians who behave immorally hurt the country's image and pollute its future.

A US Engineer, 66-year-old Noshir Gowadia has been given 32-year imprisonment over selling sensitive military technology to China.

The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it was easing restrictions of exports of high-technology goods to India in recognition of the two countries' stronger economic and national security ties.

President Dmitry Medvedev placed the blame on Tuesday on a lapse in security for allowing a suspected suicide bomber to kill at least 35 people and wound scores at Russia's busiest airport.

India's new sports minister on Monday sacked the chief organiser of last year's scandal-ridden Delhi Commonwealth Games, Suresh Kalmadi, as the coalition government caught in a web of corruption cases seeks to repair its public image.

India needs tight monetary policy to prevent food prices from spilling over to the broader economy, a top economic adviser said in a newspaper interview, ahead of a widely expected rate hike on Tuesday.