Around 4,000 Iranians, mostly youths, have stormed and vandalised several public buildings in the southern town of Ghenaveh amid rumours of the closure of a local hospital, official sources said Thursday. The government newspaper Iran

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South Korea's top nuclear negotiator said Thursday he expects no breakthrough in frustrating North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons before US presidential elections in November. Such scepticism came from Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck who

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The chief of Iran's judiciary has announced he is willing to present a new text defining "political crimes" to the government after a reformist effort to clarify the legal grey area was blocked, reports said

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Even the threat of death and a challenge to national security cannot bring together Bangladesh's two most powerful leaders. Such is the bad blood and mistrust between Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and opposition leader

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his government are ready to meet President George W. Bush and US administration officials to try to improve relations following Chavez's referendum win, Venezuela's Foreign Minister said on Wednesday. Jesus

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Italy is prepared to pull its troops out of Iraq if the interim government in Baghdad requests it, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Al-Jazeera television Thursday. His message was delivered the day after the

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Nepal's embattled government could open the way for talks with Maoist rebels if it declares a cease-fire, stops branding them as terrorists and withdraws international arrest warrants on them, a key intermediary said. Padma Ratna

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2.6 billion human beings - over 40 percent of the planet's inhabitants - lack basic sanitation, and more than one billion people still drink unsafe water, two UN organisations warned Thursday. Entitled "Meeting the Millennium

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France is pressing on with plans for a French-language rival to 24-hour global news stations such as CNN, a minister said on Thursday, adding that such a station would help France explain its foreign policy.

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Afghanistan's Taleban fighters threatened on Thursday to kill US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vowed "a flood of jihad" against the Americans, in a statement posted on their website. "We tell Rumsfeld: you may have

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