As many as 18 militants were killed and five others injured in three attacks carried out Wednesday by U.S. drones in Miranshah, North Waziristan Agency in northwest Pakistan, local media The Nation reported Thursday. According to the report, in the first attack, an U.S. drone fired missiles on two houses allegedly used by militants as compounds. At least 10 militants were killed and three others wounded in the attack, official sources said. The targeted houses located in Daga Munadi area o ...

The fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra posted Twitter messages to support the national reconciliation, his latest Twitter update since his last message on July 26. He sent the 5-point reconciliation proposal about 16 hours ago, and the message begins with: "(I) condemned instigation of violence and creation of situation for the sake of national peace and security." He asked every group and political party to stop slandering each other, not to create more conflicts, but think together a ...

&$ &$ Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaks at a news conference in Melbourne August 22, 2010. (Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)&$&$ Australian winning Labor Party Thursday held first caucus meeting in Canberra since the Aug. 21 general election, with its leader announced to recall parliament on Sept. 28. Prime Minister Julia Gillard used the meeting to reveal her intention to recall parli ...

Unified Communist Party of Nepal- Maoist (UCPN-M) prepared a separate letter to UN headquarters, objecting to the government's request to lift the monitoring of Nepal Army (NA) personnel and their weapons by UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), local media reported Thursday. "We strongly disagree with the government letter over the new mandate the government has proposed. So we are sending a separate latter to the UN on Thursday, objecting to curtailment of the UN mandate," UCPN-M Vice-chairman Naray ...

South Korea's population growth rate was one of the lowest among Asian countries in 2009, mainly driven by the country's low birth rate, a report by the Asian Development Bank showed. Seoul's Ministry of Strategy and Finance on Thursday, citing the report, said that South Korea's population increase rate stood at a mere 0.3 percent, ranking 43rd along with Armenia and the Marshall Islands among 48 Asian countries. The Cook Islands in New Zealand ranked first at 3.6 percent. The ministry ...

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&$　　The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) holds a meeting to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of its founding at the 4.25 Cultural Hall in the capital of Pyongyang, Sept. 8, 2010, in this picture released by the country's KCNA news agency on Wednesday. (Xinhua/KCNA)&$

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Asia-Pacific airlines are raising ticket prices as travelers return in droves after holding back on their travel plans last year because of the global recession. 　　A strong economic rebound, led by China, has resulted in carriers filling more seats during the summer holidays, and demand should remain robust despite slower expansion in the second half of this year, industry analysts said. 　　Singapore Airlines said it will raise fares on certain routes from October 1, while Korean Ai ...

　Failures by several parties led to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, British energy group BP concluded in the results of an internal inquiry published Wednesday, accepting some of the blame. 　　"No single factor caused the Macondo well tragedy. Rather, a sequence of failures involving a number of different parties led to the explosion and fire that killed 11 people and caused widespread pollution in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year," BP said. 　　BP said decisions made by "multi ...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy remained defiant Wednesday after massive street protests against his plan to raise the retirement age from 60, vowing to push on with an "essential" reform. 　　"The main element of this reform is a new retirement age. This age will be gradually raised ... to reach 62 in 2018," Sarkozy said in a statement. "There is no question of backtracking on this point." 　　Sarkozy reiterated that he would include in the reform special exceptions for those who sta ...

&$&$ US President Barack Obama pushed billions of dollars in new business tax incentives and spending on big construction projects Wednesday, trying to convince a balky Congress to pass measures intended to spur the economy and create jobs. Obama traveled to Ohio to tout programs that include accelerating $200 billion in business tax write-offs, which the White House says wou ...

Japanese stocks opened higher Thursday as the yen retreated from a 15-year high. In the first 15 minutes of trading, the benchmark Nikkei-225 index rose 81.98 points, or 0.91 percent, from Wednesday to 9,106. 58. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was up 5.76 points, or 0.70 percent, to 826. 75. The Second Section edged lower. &$ &$Source: Xinhua&$&$ ...

Businessmen from Panama and the United States vowed on Wednesday to promote trade and economic cooperation through a bilateral agreement. The memorandum of understanding was signed by Vice President of Panama's Commerce, Industries and Agriculture Chamber Federico Humbert and Vice President of Atlanta's Logistic Sector of the Metropolitan Chamber Bob Pertierra. Both of them promised to regularly exchange information and opinions of the economic activities of their entrepreneur institutions ...

Brazil's wealth gap narrowed as the country's Gini coefficient dropped from 0.521 in 2008 to 0.518 in 2009, according to a survey released Wednesday. The Gini coefficient is an index to measure wealth imbalance that goes from zero to one. The higher the figures, the more concentrated the wealth is. According to the nationwide household survey by Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the access to basic services has increased from 2004 to 2009. In 2004 only 50 million househol ...

Central America's three major stock markets closed mixed on Wednesday. Panama's BVPSI index closed up 0.02 percent at 255.64 points with a trade volume of 24.4 million U.S. dollars. In Costa Rica, which has Central America's largest bourse, the BNV index closed up 1.04 percent at 4,935.14 points with a trade volume of 208.4 million dollars. El Salvador's stock market ended flat at 200.83 points with a trade volume of 5.76 million dollars. &$ &$Source: Xinhua&$&$ ...

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos pledged to take measures to improve security in the district 13 of northwestern city Medellin following clashes between criminal bands. Accompanied by Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera and top officers of the public forces, Santos visited the district 13 where he met with local authorities to discuss security in the area. "I think all the good people have to be committed to the success of this integral policy ... that is why the communications between ...

The Mexican government said Wednesday that it arrested or killed seven people linked to the killing of 72 illegal immigrants last month in the northern state of Tamaulipas. One suspect was arrested and two were killed during a clash on Monday between the Mexican marines and gangsters, spokesman Alejandro Poire told a press conference. The arrested had been identified by an Ecuadorian, who survived the massacre on Aug. 24 but was badly wounded. He alerted the police to the location of the b ...

Two Mexican investigators working on last month's massacre of 72 migrants may have been murdered, authorities said Wednesday. Two dead bodies recently found in northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas appeared to be those of the two investigators, according to a spokesman from the state's attorney general's office (PGR). "We are doing the forensic work to confirm their identities, but everything indicates that they are investigators," the spokesman told Xinhua by telephone. Roberto Jaime Su ...

A UN Security Council working group on Wednesday strongly condemned the mass rapes in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and urged the DRC government to immediate launch an inquiry into the tragedy, which involved children victims. The statement came as Claude Heller, the Mexican UN ambassador, was speaking to reporters here in his capacity as the chairman of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. "We expressed our strong condemnation of ...

Corn futures declined from the highest in more than 14 months as grains and other commodities tracked losses in equities on concern that global economic growth may be curbed. December-delivery corn dropped for the first time in five days, losing as much as 0.4 percent to $4.642 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. The contract Tuesday climbed to $4.69, the highest price for the most-active contract since June 11, 2009. It traded at $4.652 a bushel at 2:44 pm Singapore time. The MSCI W ...

In a talk with an American journalist, Cuban's Fidel Castro said that the country's economic model didn't work, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. The fact that things are not working efficiently on the cash-strapped Caribbean island country is hardly news, The AP report said. Fidel's brother Raul Castro, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows, the report said. Jeffrey Go ...