Brussels - Montenegro moved a small step closer to becoming a candidate for European Union membership on Thursday as the bloc's member states agreed to send its application for official scrutiny.
Montenegro applied for official candidate status on December 15, but EU member states spent the next four months at loggerheads as they debated whether the small Balkan state - which broke away from union with Serbia in 2006 - should be granted it.
Washington - Barack Obama's campaign promise to recognize that the slaughter of more than 1 million Armenians in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire was genocide has left him in a difficult spot as president.
Since he took office, the influential Armenian-American community has been clamoring for Obama to follow through on the declaration and expressed disappointment that he did not do so during his trip in early April to Turkey.
Beijing - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China is ready to offer help to ensure Pakistan's stability and development and also welcomed the international community's constructive role there, the official news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.
Wen made the comments late Friday at a meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the Bo'ao Forum for Asia, a regional economic meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
Tokyo - Japan and the United States Friday pledged to provide 1 billion dollars each to Pakistan.
"Pakistan plays an extremely important role in the international fight against terrorism and extremism," Prime Minister Taro Aso said at a ministerial-level meeting of the Friends of Pakistan group in Tokyo.
At the opening of the meeting, Aso officially announced Japan's contribution of 1 billion dollars to Pakistan. The United States vowed to donate the same amount.
Havana - Cuban President Raul Castro held his first talks with a US congressional delegation since taking office a little more than a year ago, Cuban state television reported.
No details about Monday's talks were released.
The seven-member delegation of Democrats was in Havana to explore ways of improving US-Cuban relations as US President Barack Obama, also a Democrat, was expected to lift some of the restrictions the United States imposed on the island almost 50 years ago.
Wellington - New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday that he was sending a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai protesting a law Karzai signed that decrees a wife is obliged to fulfil the sexual desires of her husband.
But he said at his weekly news conference that the law he earlier described as "abhorrent" would not colour his government's decision on whether to expand New Zealand's military commitment to Afghanistan
Brussels - Montenegro moved a small step closer to becoming a candidate for European Union membership on Thursday as the bloc's member states agreed to send its application for official scrutiny.
Washington - Barack Obama's campaign promise to recognize that the slaughter of more than 1 million Armenians in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire was genocide has left him in a difficult spot as president.
Beijing - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China is ready to offer help to ensure Pakistan's stability and development and also welcomed the international community's constructive role there, the official news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.
Tokyo - Japan and the United States Friday pledged to provide 1 billion dollars each to Pakistan.
Havana - Cuban President Raul Castro held his first talks with a US congressional delegation since taking office a little more than a year ago, Cuban state television reported.
Wellington - New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday that he was sending a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai protesting a law Karzai signed that decrees a wife is obliged to fulfil the sexual desires of her husband.
