President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai The U.S. said Iran shouldn’t interfere with Afghanistan’s internal affairs following a report that an Iranian official gave an aide of President Hamid Karzai a bag filled with packets of euro bills. “We understand that Iran and Afghanistan are neighbors and will have a relationship,” Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed... 

Benedict XVI says freedom of religion ‘one of the fundamental human rights,’ should be subject of dialogue with Muslims. Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday called for greater religious freedom in the Middle East and said that peace there is possible, urgently needed and the best remedy to the exodus of Christians from the region. Benedict celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday... 

This undated handout illustration shows the DNA double helix. A Japanese has joined the elite club of humans whose genetic code has been fully sequenced, according to research unveiled on Sunday. A Japanese has joined the elite club of humans whose genetic code has been fully sequenced, according to research unveiled on Sunday. The unnamed male gave a sample of DNA which has been unravelled to show... 

Europe's far right say Turkey could bring down the EU Since 2005, Turkey has been in membership talks with the European Union – with little success. Far-right parties now say the country poses a threat to EU identity and are planning a referendum to block Turkey’s EU bid. Several far-right European parties have vowed to seek a Europe-wide referendum on Turkey’s accession to the... 

Development experts are warning that Uganda’s high fertility rate might become an economic burden in future if action to check the population surge is not taken. A new population report released on Wednesday shows that a Ugandan woman on average gives birth to seven children, one of the highest fertility rates not only in East Africa but also in the world. The report entitled, ‘Population and... 

Indoneisa has admitted it's soldiers tortured a Papuan man Indonesia has admitted that its soldiers had tortured Papuan men seen in an online video being beaten and humiliated, and promised a thorough investigation. The soldiers applied a burning stick to the genitals of one of the unarmed detainees and threatened another with a knife as they interrogated them over the location of a weapons cache,... 

Shi Tao, a freelance journalist, is serving a jail sentence for leaking a document banning coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests anniversary. Human rights groups and WikiLeaks itself warn that Government Leaks project is naive given China’s strict secrecy laws. Attempts to create a “Chinese WikiLeaks” project could result in lengthy jail sentences for internet users who send sensitive... 

A car bomb and two police raids killed six people and wounded seven in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region on Saturday, authorities said. In the republic of Dagestan, a suicide bomber in a car tried to attack a police dormitory in the town of Khasavyurt but an armored vehicle blocked his way, a police spokesman said. The explosion killed the suspected militant and a police officer, and wounded... 

There’s a half-off sale in the world’s tallest building. Even with an address at the iconic Burj Khalifa, rents for residences in the tower are not immune from Dubai’s real estate crash. Indeed, nearly a year after it was inaugurated with a massive water-and-fireworks display, about 825 of the tower’s 900 ultra-luxury apartments remain unoccupied, according to Better Homes,... 

US President Barack Obama said Tuesday he had no objection to Venezuela developing nuclear power for civilian energy purposes, days after Caracas and Moscow signed a landmark deal. “We have no incentive nor interest in increasing friction between Venezuela and the US, but we do think Venezuela needs to act responsibly,” Obama told Spanish media at the White House. “Our attitude is... 

Yuan banknotes are seen in this illustrative photograph taken in Beijing September 19, 2010. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Bank of China may be found liable for supporting terrorism in a case brought by the family of a U.S. citizen killed in a 2006 suicide bombing in Israel. The unusual 118-page ruling came as Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia... 

The annual Small World Photomicrography Competition sponsored by Nikon aims to showcase “the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope.” Indeed, the 2010 winning photographs reveal what’s not seen or visible to the human eye. While many of the stunning images were taken to advance science, some are just simply beautiful to look at. The following photos were... 

Thirty five years ago yesterday, we could only imagine the view from the surface of another world. But Russia’s Venera 9 probe changed all that, beaming back the first ever photo of another planet—25 million miles away. By 1975, the moon was no longer a frontier. It had been landed on, hopped across, analyzed, filmed, photographed, and dug into. The next step wasn’t the tiny rock orbiting... 

A rare earth mine in China, which this week announced that it would cut its annual export quota for rare earths in 2011. China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said this week. The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are... 

20-year-old criminology student Marisol Valles became the bravest college girl in North America when she stepped up to be police chief of Guadalupe, Mexico’s second-most violent city after Juarez. Nobody else would accept the position. Guadalupe’s mayor was murdered in June; police beheadings are common. The current mayor said his hands were tied: Valles, a criminology major, “was...