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At least twelve civilians have died and over 25 wounded in a suicide bombing in the Hangu District of north-west Pakistan, Thursday night. A convoy of 140 vehicles running from Tall, in Hangu District to the town of Parachinar in Kurram Agency, FATA was targeted. The victims, some of them women, were at a petrol station in Hangu. The wounded were taken to adjoining hospitals. According to police, the attacker detonated a bomb near a fully loaded bus. The convoy carried several people, vehicles filled with provisions and commodities for tradin

On Friday, the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown defended the decisions he made leading up to and following the British invasion of Iraq in 2003. Brown made his statements while testifying before the Chilcot Inquiry. At the time of the invasion, Brown was the Chancellor of spending for the British Armed Forces. Brown comments were mainly directed at critics who had alleged that he had limited the spending budget for the war. Brown said that he had told then Prime Minister Tony Blair that he "would not try to rule out

Somali pirates seized the Norwegian chemical tanker UBT Ocean off the coast of Madagascar yesterday, according to reports. The Norwegian News Agency reports that the ship, which is Marshall Islands-flagged, has 21 crew members aboard. Svenn Pedersen of the ship's owner, Broevigtank, said yesterday that "[t]he captain of the ship called us early this morning and told us: We have pirates on board. Very quickly afterwards we lost all contact with the boat." Pedersen commented that the tanker had taken a route to the south of where Somali pirates

According to officials, at least eleven solders in the Philippines were killed and several others injured on Saturday after a gunfight with Communist rebels in Mindoro, a province south of the capital Manila. It was the deadliest incident between the two since the start of the year. Army officials commented that a platoon of Filipino soldiers accidentally entered the grounds of the New People's Army (NPA) rebel camp. "The two sides exchanged fire a few meters apart," remarked army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Noel Detoyato. "[...] The troops

Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, claimed Britain believed Africa is "barbaric", hours before a state visit to Queen Elizabeth II. These claims were made after the Daily Mail described him as a "sex-obsessed bigot and vile buffoon." Zuma accused Britons of considering themselves to be culturally superior owing to their past colonial activities. "When the British came to our country they said everything we did was barbaric, was wrong, inferior in whatever way. Bear in mind that I'm a freedom fighter and I fought to free myself, also for m

An investigation by the BBC has revealed that millions of dollars in famine relief aid money, including the money raised from the charity supergroup Band Aid and the Live Aid concert held by Bob Geldof, was "siphoned off" by Ethiopian rebels to buy weapons. One rebel said that at least US$ 95 million (£63 million) from — Western governments and private charities — was diverted into rebel coffers. This was also noted in a declassified Central Intelligence Agency assessment of the famine situation titled Ethiopia: Political and Security Impact

China's military spending will increase by 7.5% for 2010, the first single-digit increase since 1989, a spokesman for the Chinese parliament, Li Zhaoxing, said. Mr. Li said that China would spend 532.1 billion yuan ($77.9 billion) on the country's military over the course of 2010, an increase of about 36.9 billion yuan ($5.4 billion) over 2009's spending. Regardless of the increase, China still spends significantly less on its military as a proportion of its gross domestic product (GDP) than other countries around the world. China spends abo

During the first day of voting in Iraq elections, two suicide bombers have attacked polling stations in Baghdad, killing at least 14. The attacks occurred during early voting in for the elections, which allow government employees, the sick and prisoners to vote ahead of the elections on Sunday. Two attacks occurred, about an hour apart, in different districts of Baghdad. According to the official count, at least 14 people died in the attacks, not counting attacks the day before that killed 31 people. Unofficially, reports from the scene of th

On Wednesday, Captain Chesley Sullenberger retired. The US Airways pilot was best known for the "Miracle on the Hudson," when he landed Flight 1549 safely down on the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. After a bird strike in which both engines were blown out, Sullenberger was forced to land the plane, which carried 150 passengers, safely down on the river. With help from the crew and first responders on scene, all those on the plane survived with minimal injuries. Following the near disaster, many people hailed Sullenberger as a hero. Ove

A United States Congressional panel has passed a resolution describing Turkey's killing of Armenians in World War I as genocide, over objections from the White House. The panel, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, passed the resolution, which calls on President Barack Obama to "characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide," by a vote of 23 to 22. The passage came even after the White House warned the panel that the vote would harm talks between Turkey and Armenia, and US Secretary of State Hill

According to reports from officials, four Pakistani and one Afghan road construction workers were killed in Afghanistan yesterday by armed men. The interior ministry reported that the attack happened on Thursday morning, in the Panjwayi district in the Kandahar province, and noted that one other Pakistani and Afghan labourer were injured. The workers were reportedly en route to a building site operated by the SAITA construction firm. "They were going to work when this incident took place. We are arranging transportation of their bodies back t

An armed man opened fire at an entrance to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on Thursday at 6.40 p.m (0140 UTC), injuring two police officers, before being shot and killed by them. According to the officers, the man calmly approached an entrance to the building near the Metro station, pulled a gun from his coat pocket and opened fire at them. No one else was injured in the incident. The attacker has been identified as 36 year old John Patrick Bedell of Hollister, California. He was armed with two nine millimeter semiautomatic weapons and several