Asia

• The Pakistani Taliban has finally confirmed the death of leader Hakimullah Mehsud, 
• 197 people, including a former governor, have been charged with last November's politically-motivated massacre of 57 in the Philippines. 
• Sri Lankan opposition leader Sarath Fonseka, who had been planning to challenge last months presidential election result in court, was arrested on sedition charges.  
• North Korea's Kim Jong Il dispatched his top nuclear envoy to Beijing for disarmament talks. 

Middle East

• Iran has reportedly begun enriching its supply of uranium.
• An Iranian opposition leader was jailed for six months for his role in last summer's protests.  
• Egypt arrested three top Muslim Brotherhood leaders.  

Africa

• Nigeria's senate voted to empower Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to take over from ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua, ending weeks of uncertainty over who was running the country. 
• A rebel leader who was the first Darfur war crimes suspect to be charged at the International Criminal Court has had the charges against him dropped. 
• Ghana has blocked the sale of an oil field to Exxon Mobil.

Americas

• Mexico arrested two leaders of Tijuana's top drug cartel. 
• Haitian authorities say the U.S. missionaries facing kidnapping charges had made an earlier attempt to remove children from the country. 
• A 28-year old man was pulled from the rubble in Port-au-Prince, alive after four weeks. 

Europe 

• The British Iraq War inquiry will now seek meetings with top Bush administration officials. 
• The IRA splinter group, the Irish National Liberation Army, has fully disarmed but made no apologies for its violent tactics. 
• France has unveiled a new national identity plan which would require new immigrants to sign a declaration of values.  

Americas

• After the United States said it had picked an ambassador to Syria, the first since 2005, officials said they expected little from the thaw.
• Nestor Kirchner, former president of Argentina and current first spouse, is due to recover from heart surgery.
• U.S. President Barack Obama announced a bipartisan conference on his troubled health-care reform plan.

Asia

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he expects the Afghan military to take over security from international forces this year.
• Taiwan's monthly exports grew 75 percent.
• An avalanche in Kashmir killed 11 Indian soldiers.

Europe

• The Irish National Liberation Army, a Northern Irish republican group, said it has fully disarmed.
• Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch, will start libel proceedings against a Russian man who accused him on television of killing Alexander Litvinenko.
• With debt at 12.7 percent of GDP, Greece prepared emergency economic measures.

Middle East

• Egypt detained several leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Iran said it would expand its military and build 10 nuclear plants.
• Israel released two foreign pro-Palestinian activists it had arrested in the West Bank.

Africa

• The gubernatorial election in Nigeria's Anambra province, in the delta region, has been condemned as rigged.
• Chad President Idriss Deby visited Sudan for talks on Darfur.
• Al Shabaab, the Somali terrorist group, said it has declared war on Kenya.
• South African President Jacob Zuma delivers his state of the union speech this week.

Asia

• An explosion in a Pakistani hospital where victims from an earlier attack were being treated killed at least five.
• India offered to resume talks with Pakistan.
• North Korea said it will release a U.S. missionary who had entered the country and been arrested.
• The Taliban said they would not negotiate with Western powers.

Americas

• Haiti's food distribution network is now fully operational.
• The U.S. unemployment rate fell slightly to 9.7 percent in January. It is forecast to rise.
• Haitian authorities charged members of an U.S. Baptist group with attempting to smuggle children out of the country.

Europe

• Russia pushed back on U.S. plans to place ballistic missiles in Romania.
• Ukraine's candidates for president upped campaigning before the Sunday run-off between Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanokovych.
• Taiwan said it will purchase military helicopters from Europe, angering China.
• Unionists and separatists in Northern Ireland agreed on a power-sharing government, ending a months-long standoff. 

Middle East

• A suicide bomber killed more than 20 in Baghdad, during a Shiite religious pilgrimage.
• U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he did not have enough evidence to determine whether Palestine and Israel are complying with U.N. demands regarding examining the Gaza conflict.

Africa

• The Nigerian parliament seeks to amend a constitutional rule putting the vice president in power if the president has not been in office for three weeks.
• Speaking yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast, U.S. President Barack Obama condemned Uganda's anti-gay laws.

Asia and Pacific

• India has reportedly offered to resume official bilateral talks with Pakistan. 
• North Korea has reportedly eased its restrictions on private markets. 
• Australia blocked three shipments of unidentified cargo to Iran, invoking a little-used weapons of mass destruction law.

Middle East

• Israel's foreign minister warned Syria that it would lose if the two goes went to war again.
• A leading Iranian human rights activist and journalist was arrested on Wednesday.  
• An Iraqi appeals court overturned a controversial ban on hundreds of election candidate who had ties to the Baath party.  

Americas

• The U.S. baptists accused of child trafficking in Haiti will appear before a prosecutor today. 
• The U.S. has opened two new centers to treat evacuated earthquake victims in Tampa and Atlanta. 
• The Mexican military arrested 10 people in connection with three headless bodies found near Ciudad Juarez. 

Europe

• The Swiss government has approved the resettlement of two Uighur prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.  
• Greek officials have begun a strike against wage cuts. 
• More than half the members of Britain's House of Commons have been asked to pay back government funds used to make frivolous purchases. 

Africa

• Somali pirates hijacked a Libyan-owned merchant ship and a North Korean cargo ship. 
• Medecins Sans Frontieres has accused both sides in Somalia's violence of indiscriminately shelling civilians. 
• A Nigerian cabinet minister has called on President Umaru Yar'Adua to step down. 

Middle East

• A motorcylce bombing killed at least 20 at a gathering of Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, Iraq. 
• Iran successfully launched a research rocket into space. 
• Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now says he has "no problem" with shipping uranium abroad for enrichment. 

Asia

• The White House says President Obama will go ahead with plans to meet the Dalai Lama, despite Chinese protests. 
• Sri Lanka's elections commissioner says no rigging took place during the country's presidential voting but there were abuses during the campaign.  
• Japanese prosecutors will probably not file charges against Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa for misreporting funds.

Africa

• Appeals judges say the International Criminal Court was wrong in not charging Sudanese President Omar al Bashir with genocide. 
• A Guinean inquiry has found one renegade soldier solely responsible for last September's massacre of protesters. 
• The World Food Program says the number of people needing food aid in South Sudan has quadrupled to nearly 4 million. 

Americas

• An orphanage director says many of the Haitian children that a U.S. baptist group was attempting to take out of the country last week had parents. 
• Officials say Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has begun talking to federal agents again. 
• A shootout at a shopping center in Northern Mexico killed one policemen and seven suspected cartel gunmen. 

Europe

• Former British cabinet minister Clare Short accused former Prime Minister Tony Blair of lying before the government's Iraq war inquiry panel.
• Ukraine and Russia have each accused each other of espionage ahead of Sunday's presidential election. 
• During a visit to Britain, Pope Benedict criticized new gay rights legislation. 

Middle East

• Hamas leaders say prisoner exchange talks with Israel are at an impasse. 
• Israeli police are investigating two barrels of explosives that washed up on the shore. 
• Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Saudi Arabia to seek help in reconciliation talks with the Taliban. 

Asia

• China warned that a planned meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama will further damage U.S.-China relations. 
• Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim goes on trial for a second time to face sodomy charges that are widely considered to be politically motivated. 
• The Pakistani military has offered to help train Afghan troops. 

Europe

• A bomb exploded on railroad tracks in St. Petersburg. 
• A trial begins to today to determine blame for the 2000 crash of the Air France Concorde. 
• After a week of talks, Northern Ireland leaders say they are close to a new power-sharing agreement. 

Africa

• Somali pirates abandoned an Indian-flagged dhow they had hijacked two weeks ago. 
• The Sudanese army accused the United Nations of arming Darfur's rebels. 
• South Africa's polygamist President Jacob Zuma is under fire after a newspaper reported that he had fathered his 20th child out of wedlock.

Americas

• The aircraft carrier USS Vinson is leaving Haitian waters after delivering 500 tons of food aid.
• Haitian prosecutors questioned the 10 U.S. missionaries being held on child trafficking charges.  
• The mayor of Ciudad Juarez says the massacre that killed 16 at a children's birthday party last Saturday may have been a "random" act. 

Middle East

• At least 41 people were killed in a suicide bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad. 
• The Israel Defense Forces disciplined two officers for approving the use of white phosphorous in Gaza last year. 
• Yemen's government rejected a ceasefire offer from the country's northern rebels. 

Asia

• Envoys of the Dalai Lama met with Chinese officials in Beijing. 
• The Pakistani Taliban denied reports that leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone strike and says it will produce evidence that he is alive. 
• North and South Korea held talks on Monday, days after gunfire was exchanged across the border. 

Africa

• The African Union elected Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika as its new president, despite a bid from Libyan leader Muammar al Qaddafi to stay on.
• A Royal Dutch Shell oil pipeline was sabotaged in Nigeria shortly after the country's Mend rebels declared they were ending their ceasefire. 
• Heavy mortar fire between African Union peacekeepers and Shabaab rebels in Mogadishu killed at least 12 civilians. 

Americas

• Gunmen killed 14 people at a high school birthday party in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
• The Honduran government reinstated its top immigration official, 24 hours after firing him. 
• After a series of crippling blackouts, Venezuela announced plans to increase its electricity capacity. 

Europe

• Russian police broke up anti-Kremlin demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg, arresting more than 100.
• U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in Cyprus for unity talks. 
• German authorities say a Swiss source offered to sell them confidential bank data showing tax evasion by over 1,500 German citizens.  

Middle East

• Hamas claim that Israeli agents assassinated one of its veteran operatives in Dubai. 
• The U.S. Senate passed a bill allowing the president to expand sanctions against Iran. 
• In a new audiotape, Osama bin Laden blames the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change. 

Asia

• Sri Lankan police raided the office of losing presidential candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka. 
• Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan to engage senior Taliban members received a mixed reaction at the international Afghanistan conference in London.
• For a third day, North Korea continued to fire artillery at its sea border with South Korea. 

Americas

• Honduras's new government says the country is nearly bankrupt and will require international assistance. 
• Peru hopes to evacuate the last flood-stranded tourists from Mach Picchu on Friday. 
• Venezuela is denying accusations that it violated Colombian airspace. 

Europe

• Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the reasoning between the Iraq war before a government review panel. 
• French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says his country will not send any more combat troops to Afghanistan. 
• U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in France where she will deliver a speech on European security. 

Africa

• At least 15 people were killed in a heavy day of fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia. 
• A Nigerian court rejected a request for an interim president to be appointed while Umar Yar'adua is out of the country. 
• Kenya's government will scrap the position of prime minister, which was created as part of a power-sharing agreement after the disputed election of 2007.