Gaza - The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement said Thursday that any extension of the nearly-five-month-old truce in the Gaza Strip depended on the level of commitment Israel showed to it.
The Egyptian-mediated truce, which came into being on June 19, has been battered in recent days by an Israeli raid to destroy a tunnel being built under the Gaza border, and subsequent militant rocket attacks from the salient.
Kabul - At least seven civilians and 13 Taliban insurgents were killed in a US airstrike in western Afghanistan, while ten more insurgents were killed in separate fights with US military forces elsewhere in the country, officials said Thursday.
The latest airstrike took place on Wednesday in Ghormach district of the western province of Badghis after a group of Taliban militants attacked US military troops in the area.
Brussels - The Polish government must sell off two shipyards which were the cradle of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement in order to claim back hundreds of millions of euros in illegal state aid, the European Union's executive ruled Thursday.
"State aid granted to the shipyards in Gdynia and Szczecin gives rise to disproportionate distortions of competition ... in breach of EC Treaty state aid rules, and must be repaid," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told journalists in Brussels.
Frankfurt - A correspondent for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has been taken captive by armed militiamen in the conflict region in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the newspaper confirmed Thursday.
The FAZ confirmed an earlier report in the Belgian daily Le Soir that correspondent Thomas Scheen, 43, had fallen into the hands of Mai-Mai militias.
Harare - Two leading Zimbabwean pro-democracy activists were released Thursday on bail after 21 days in prison.
Jenni Williams (46) and Magodonga Mahlangu (35), leaders of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise group, have been held in a prison in the western city of Bulawayo since October 16, when they were arrested for protesting restrictions by President Robert Mugabe on the distribution of food relief by some agencies.
Baghdad- British Minister for International Development Dougl
Gaza - The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement said Thursday that any extension of the nearly-five-month-old truce in the Gaza Strip depended on the level of commitment Israel showed to it.
Kabul - At least seven civilians and 13 Taliban insurgents were killed in a US airstrike in western Afghanistan, while ten more insurgents were killed in separate fights with US military forces elsewhere in the country, officials said Thursday.
Brussels - The Polish government must sell off two shipyards which were the cradle of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement in order to claim back hundreds of millions of euros in illegal state aid, the European Union's executive ruled Thursday.
Frankfurt - A correspondent for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has been taken captive by armed militiamen in the conflict region in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the newspaper confirmed Thursday.
Harare - Two leading Zimbabwean pro-democracy activists were released Thursday on bail after 21 days in prison.
