At least 25 people have been killed and dozens injured in four suspected suicide bombings in the Afghan city of Kandahar, police say.

The first blast was heard at about 1530 GMT and was followed by three other attacks across the city.

Afghanistan KABUL : A roadside bomb exploded in central Afghanistan on Saturday, killing six people travelling in a civilian vehicle, the interior ministry said.

The blast occurred in Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province, said the ministry. One passenger was also wounded in the incident, it added.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are widely used by Taliban insurgents against Afghan and international troops, but often claim civilian lives.

Two militants were also killed on Saturday when the IED they were trying to plant on a roadside in the Muqur district of western Badghis province went off, provincial police chief Sayed Ahmad Sameh told AFP.

There are about 121,000 international troops based in Afghanistan fighting an insurgency being waged by the remnants of the Taliban, pushed from government after a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday he must work to repair relations with Washington after a debacle over Jewish settlements that has undermined US efforts to mediate new peace talks with the Palestinians.
Clinton’s blunt language betrayed US frustration after a visit by Vice President Joe Biden was overshadowed by Israel’s approval of new Jewish building on occupied land. She reminded Netanyahu of the commitments the United States makes to protect Israel from hostile neighbors, her spokesman said. On a day when Israeli forces sealed off the West Bank and deployed riot squads around Jerusalem’s holy sites to contain Palestinian anger during weekly Muslim prayers, Clinton called the latest settlement approval a “deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship and had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process.”

MEXICO CITY: An American citizen, two policemen, four young men and a local government official were among those killed in attacks scattered across Mexico, as a wave of violence associated with powerful drug cartels continues.

Police identified U.S. citizen German Norman Hall on Thursday as one of two men murdered by gunmen with assault rifles in the border town of Piedras Negras across from Eagle Pass, Texas. Police said Hall was shot eight times in the Wednesday attack.

Four men sitting down to eat in the Mexican state of Sinaloa died when attackers burst into the restaurant with assault rifles and sprayed them with gunfire.

One victim tried to fire back with a handgun before he was killed in the Wednesday afternoon attack, said Martin Gastelum, prosecutor for drug-plague state on Mexico’s West Coast.

The killings don’t represent a new wave of terror _ about 17,900 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug trafficking in December 2006.

But they reflect the ongoing wars for local turf and drug routes to U.S. markets among entrenched gangs.

Much of the attention in recent weeks has been centered around the border town of Reynosa _ across from McAllen, Texas _ where federal authorities warned residents to avoid certain neighborhoods after three people were killed in two separate shootings Wednesday.

In Chilpancingo, capital of Mexico’s southern Guerrero state, two commanding police officers were killed Wednesday when gunmen opened fire on the car they were riding in, peppering it with more than 70 bullets, according to police reports. Their murders follow the killings of six other police officers in the region since last weekend.

Soldiers killed a government employee and arrested three other men, including a former politician, during a Wednesday shootout in northeastern Nuevo Leon state.

Mexican military officials say the men were traveling in the town of Apodaca in a pickup that had been reported stolen and were armed with pistols. The shootout erupted after soldiers tried to stop them. Instead of pulling over, the pickup truck driver opened fire and tried to flee.

Empty shell casings were found scattered around the vehicle following the pre-dawn attack. Apodaca Mayor Benito Caballero confirmed the dead man, aged 20, was an events organizer for the city.

“It’s regrettable that an a local official was involved in this type of activity,” Caballero said.

President Barack Obama announced that he plans to spread the money that accompanies his Nobel Peace Prize among 10 different charities.
Obama was awarded the prize based on the hope that his presidency would bring about a change in American foreign policy, had decided soon after being notified of the award that he would donate the $1.4 million award to charity.
The prize money would be distributed amongst non-profit organization which include organization that provides housing for families of those receiving medical care at major military and Veterans Affairs medical centers. Obama will also give to an organization dedicated to the long term relief and rebuilding of Haiti massive earthquake that devastated the country. Much of the rest of the award will go to boosting college education scholarship funds. Obama also awarded $100,000 each to two charities working in Africa and Central.
The other, the Central Asia Institute, promotes literacy and education, primarily for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. One of the institute’s co-founders was also a nominee for the Nobel Prize that Obama won.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday roundly defeated a resolution demanding President Barack Obama withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan, in a key election-year test for his war strategy.
Lawmakers routed the resolution in a 356-65 vote that saw 60 of Obama’s Democratic allies and five of his Republican critics cast ballots to call home all US forces from what he has called the central front against extremism. The measure demanded Obama pull US forces out of Afghanistan 30 days after the bill becomes law or, if he decides that is too dangerous, by no later than December 31. A January, public opinion poll by an international television channel found 52 percent of the US public opposed the war and 47 percent supported it, but 61 percent approved of Obama’s decision to deploy another 30,000 US troops in a “surge” aimed at turning the tide against the Taliban militia, with 38 percent opposed. The study had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points. The resolution invokes the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which aimed to curb presidential war-fighting authority after years of fighting in Vietnam despite the absence of a formal declaration of war. The Congress authorized the use of force in Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington carried out by Al-Qaeda militants which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned Israeli plans to build 1,600 more homes on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood, announced in the middle of his visit to help revive peace negotiations.
Israel’s refusal to stop settlement building despite US urging has been a major obstacle to a resumption of the talks, and the announcement put Biden in an uncomfortable position ahead of a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units, Biden said in a statement. He said the blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel, “undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.” The Palestinians had dropped a demand that Israel freeze settlement building and agreed to up to four months of indirect negotiations after receiving Arab League endorsement last week. Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who heads a religious party in Netanyahu’s governing coalition and is responsible for the plan’s announcement, described its timing as happenstance.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai would arrive in Pakistan tomorrow on a two-day visit.
Karzai would be visiting the country for the first time after being elected as president for the second term. During his stay, Karzai would meet President Zardari and PM Gilani.
The foreign ministry said that the said visit would boost the bilateral ties between the two countries.
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ANKARA: At least 38 people are reported to have been killed in an earthquake in eastern Turkey.The government’s crisis centre says many of the victims were from the small villages of Okcular, Yukari Kanatli and Kayali, where the quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6 flattened stone or mud-brick houses and minarets of mosques.

Some 60 people were reported injured.

TV reports said the dead included four young sisters trapped in the rubble in their sleep.

Rescue workers were trying to pull out one other people from debris in Okcular village.

The Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said the quake in Elazig province happened at 4:32 am (0232 GMT) on Monday and was centred near the village of Basyurt.

It was followed by some 20 aftershocks, the strongest measuring 4.1.

BAGHDAD: Iraqis voted Sunday in an election testing the mettle of the country’s still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed 25 people in the capital and sending down a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the day.

About 19 million Iraqis are eligible to vote in the election for who will lead the country as U.S. forces pull out and determine whether Iraq can overcome the jagged sectarian divisions that have defined it since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections launched a volley of mortar attacks just as polls opened across the city and country.

At least 12 people died in northeastern Baghdad after an explosion leveled a building, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said.

In Baghdad’s northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to vote three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade at a crowd heading to the polls, said police and hospital officials.

In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein. There were also explosions elsewhere in the country, but no further reports of fatalities.

Insurgents also launched mortars toward the Green Zone — home to the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister’s office — and in the Sunni stronghold of Azamiyah police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the neighborhood since day break.

About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new parliament, Iraq’s second for a full term of parliament since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion seven years ago this month.