US President George W. Bush on Thursday extended for one year a range of financial sanctions first imposed on Iran in November 1979, the White House announced. "Our relations with Iran have not yet returned

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Russia, the United States and the European Union stepped up attempts on Thursday to end months of deadlock over Iran's nuclear programme. The powers sought to draft a proposal aimed at satisfying the world that

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President Bashar al-Assad promised on Thursday to cooperate with a UN inquiry into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, but said Syria would not sacrifice its own national interests in the process. The

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French President Jacques Chirac called on Thursday for a swift response to problems faced by residents of riot-torn suburbs and a police chief said he feared the rioters were planning violent protests in central Paris.

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Shimon Peres was ousted as Israel's Labour Party leader on Thursday by a trade union chief who vowed to quit Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ruling coalition and usher in early elections. After a leadership contest

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China's Communist Party plans to spend millions of dollars to revive Marxism in an apparent bid to shore up its political legitimacy and fill an ideological vacuum that has spawned official corruption. The step might

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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) ousted opposition leader Ayman Nour from parliament and took a strong early lead, according to first results from legislative elections announced on Thursday. The election commission said

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Three Asian nations reported new outbreaks of bird flu in poultry on Thursday, a day after health experts unveiled a $1 billion global plan to halt the spread of the deadly virus. China, Vietnam and

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South Africa on Thursday unveiled the southern hemisphere's biggest telescope, intended to catch glimpses of the early universe and shed light on how it turned from "smooth" to "clumpy". The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT)

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The rupee recovered from early lows on Thursday helped by foreign investment in the Indian stock market and less demand for dollars among importers ahead of the US trade figures for September due at 1330

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