N.Korea in new threats over protests in South

North Korea issued new threats against South Korea on Tuesday, vowing "sledge-hammer blows" of retaliation if South Korea did not apologise for anti-North Korean protests the previous day when the North was celebrating the birth of its founding leader.

Floods kill at least nine in Luanda

Floods in the Angolan capital, Luanda, have killed at least nine people and left four missing, the State news agency Angop reported on Sunday, citing a local government official.

The official told Angop the deaths were caused by destruction to houses during heavy rain on Saturday. He said some of the victims were children.

Venezuela’s Maduro wins, opposition protests

Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver who became Hugo Chavez’s protege, was declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday but the opposition refused to accept the result and demanded a recount of all the votes.

Palestinian youths shot to death

Israeli troops have shot dead two Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank, medical officials said on Thursday, as confrontations entered a third day following the death of a prisoner in an Israeli jail.

The Israeli army said troops fired on Palestinians who threw fire bombs after dark on Wednesday at a guard post near Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. One body was swiftly recovered and a second was found in the early hours of Thursday.

Palestinian PM Fayyad offers resignation

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad offered his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday following a rift between the two men over government policy, two sources told Reuters.

Abbas was due to return to the occupied West Bank from Jordan on Thursday, and it was not immediately clear whether he would accept the resignation of the US-educated economist.

US wants to support fight in Mali

The United States will seek ways it can help French and African forces in Mali combat al Qaeda-linked rebels, US Senator John McCain said on Tuesday during a visit to the West African country.

France launched a military offensive in Mali in January against Islamist militants threatening the capital. That drove the insurgents out of the towns they had seized, but they have since hit back with suicide attacks and guerrilla-style raids.

Cameron to meet EU leaders

British Prime Minister David Cameron hopes to overcome opposition to his plan to claw back power from Brussels when he meets the leaders of Germany, France and Spain this week for talks on Britain’s future in the European Union.

Iran’s nuclear programme entails huge costs

Iran will pursue its nuclear quest although it has reaped few gains from a totem of national pride that has cost it well over 100 billion dollars in lost oil revenue and foreign investment alone, two think-tanks said on Wednesday.

A report by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists said Iran’s atomic work could not simply be ended or "bombed away" and that diplomacy was the only way to keep it peaceful.

Lebanon’s election delay likely

Lebanon’s June election faces a possible delay, prime minister-designate Tammam Salam said, as he prepared to form a government which aims to resolve months of dispute over the vote and shield the country from war in neighbouring Syria.

Salam, a moderate who won broad political support to become premier, said he would try to bring all of Lebanon’s rival factions into a government whose main priority was paving the way for the parliamentary election.

UN approves global arms trade treaty

The 193-nation UN General Assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the first treaty on the global arms trade, which seeks to regulate the 70 billion dollar business in conventional arms and keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful US pro-gun lobbying group that has opposed the treaty from the start, said it was a sad day for the United States, which joined the vast majority of UN member states by voting for the pact.