WORLD

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the security forces on Saturday to take firm action against anti-government protesters.

President Hamid Karzai proposed new names on Saturday to replace an Afghan cabinet line-up rejected by parliament, omitting controversial ex-guerrilla commanders and their allies but still disappointing diplomats and lawmakers.

The suicide bomber who killed CIA agents in Afghanistan had made a video calling on militants to avenge the death of the Pakistani Taliban leader by carrying out attacks in and outside the United States, al Jazeera said.

President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech to Congress could indicate how badly he wants a global warming bill, which opponents say will cost U.S. jobs and raise prices -- a scary prospect for politicians trying to ride out a horrible economy in an election year.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev resolved on Friday to wipe out bandits across Russia's turbulent, Muslim-dominated southern flank after a suicide bomb killed seven policemen in the Dagestan region earlier this week.

A federal judge on Friday entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner that has prompted a sweeping review of U.S. security procedures.

Three rockets were fired on Friday at a building leased as the site of a future U.S. consulate in the western Afghan city of Herat, police said.

Unidentified men opened fire this week on leading Iranian opposition figure Mehdi Karoubi, an opposition website reported on Friday.

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad threw a box of settler products on a bonfire this week as Palestinians pushed a campaign to cleanse their markets of goods made by Israelis living in the West Bank.

President Barack Obama got some unwelcome news on Friday showing unemployment still stuck at 10 percent in December and that businesses had unexpectedly shed another 85,000 jobs.

Sri Lanka on Friday rejected the findings of a trio of United Nations-appointed investigators who said they doubted a video showing apparent executions by Sri Lankan soldiers was fake.

The declining wave of pandemic H1N1 flu is likely to be followed by new, unknown strains of seasonal flu which health authorities must watch carefully to devise protection measures, European flu experts said on Friday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner, will appear in federal court on Friday to hear the charges against him in an incident that has prompted a sweeping review of U.S. security policy.

President Barack Obama should move quickly in 2010 to win approval of long-delayed free trade agreements that would help create new U.S. jobs without adding to the budget deficit, business officials said.

A French court awarded President Nicolas Sarkozy one euro (89 pence) in damages on Friday because fraudsters took money from his personal account after obtaining his account details.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday urged Muslim nations to contribute troops for service in Afghanistan to help avoid the appearance of a religious war.

U.S. senators on Friday defended American drone aircraft strikes in ally Pakistan, an issue likely to become more volatile if Washington intensifies the attacks to hunt down enemies after the bombing of CIA agents in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama on Friday is making his promised hard pivot to jobs, following up the morning's release of December unemployment figures with an East Room announcement at 2:40 p.m. ET about stimulus dollars going to clean-tech jobs.

President Barack Obama took ultimate responsibility on Thursday for security failures that led to the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner and ordered reforms aimed at thwarting future attacks.

Israel launched three air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, witnesses and the Islamist group Hamas said, after a day in which about a dozen mortar bombs and rockets fired from the territory struck inside the Jewish state.

President Barack Obama took ultimate responsibility on Thursday for security lapses that allowed an attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner and ordered reforms aimed at thwarting future attacks.

President Barack Obama's top domestic test this year is to cut unemployment, but his push for more spending on jobs reflects political need more than economic necessity and any new stimulus is likely to be small.

The rubbish dump outside the Thai town of Mae Sot steams with rancid rotting fish and other debris, a squalid haven for hundreds of refugees from Myanmar that aid groups say could swell in size this year.

A suicide bomber struck a crowded market in restive southeast Afghanistan on Thursday, killing nine people including a senior Afghan commander, while another blast hit a neighbouring province's governor's office.

The security scare that shut Newark airport for hours and delayed thousands of passengers was caused by a man who slipped into a secure area to give a woman one last goodbye kiss, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Artillery shells killed at least 11 people in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday after rebels fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace and guards there returned fire, witnesses said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday he had the full support of his cabinet, labelling a call from two former ministers for a secret Labour party ballot on his future a storm in a tea cup.

Iran will try five people arrested in connection with protests last month, the biggest in the Islamic Republic since the aftermath of the presidential election in June, the official news agency said on Thursday.

Tens of thousands more Pakistanis are likely to be forced from their homes in 2010 as the military continues an assault against the Taliban, the head of the U.N. office responsible for emergencies said on Thursday.