Rebels thrust into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday, activists said, pursuing a string of territorial gains to help cut army supply lines and cement a foothold in the capital Damascus

Read More

Israeli attacks on journalists and media facilities in the Gaza Strip during an eight-day flare up last month "violated the laws of war," Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. But Israel rejected the findings, saying

Read More

Turkey signed an agreement on Thursday to transport troops to and from their military bases by air after a string of fatal attacks on road convoys prompted it to rethink security their arrangements. The agreement,

Read More

China has arrested nearly 1,000 people in a crackdown on a Christian sect that spread doomsday rumours and targeted communist rule, state media said Thursday ahead of the supposedly Mayan-foretold apocalypse. The Christian-inspired group "Almighty

Read More

Hindu right-wing leader Narendra Modi was Thursday re-elected as chief minister of India's western state of Gujarat, boosting his chances to be the country's next premier. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Modi, won

Read More

The most-traded March copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slipped 1.35 percent to close at 56,870 yuan ($9,100) a tonne as talks to avert a US fiscal crisis stalled, keeping investors on edge, but

Read More

Copper hit its lowest in almost a month on Thursday, pressured by deadlock in talks to avert a fiscal crisis and by weak job data in the United States, but an upward revision of the

Read More

Oil prices inched higher in choppy trading on Thursday, boosted by favourable economic data that showed the US economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, even as US budget talks seemed stuck in

Read More

Cotton eased off two-month highs to settle slightly lower on Wednesday as producers sold into the recent rally, while volumes were extremely low with speculative investors sitting on the sidelines. "The trade is buying physical

Read More

Tokyo rubber futures slipped 1.7 percent on Thursday as weaker oil prices and concerns about the United States' fiscal crisis encouraged investors to sell contract to avoid losses, dealers said. The benchmark rubber contract on

Read More