US soldiers in Afghanistan At least thirty-one US special forces have been killed after a helicopter belonging to the NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) crashed in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Wardak. The deaths were announced in a statement by the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, AFP reported on Saturday. The death toll is the biggest in a single incident... 

Israeli activists march in a demonstration against the rising cost of living in central Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011. Israelis are planning to stage massive protests against Tel Aviv’s housing and economic policies over the weekend, the organizers have announced. The organizers say they hope the demonstrations will bring over 200,000 people onto the streets on Saturday, The Jerusalem... 

NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran, Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said. The UN Security Council condemned on Wednesday ongoing violence in Syria and urged the country’s authorities to stop using force against peaceful protesters, while... 

UN Security Council UN Security Council member Germany on Sunday formally requested emergency consultations by the 15-nation body on the Syrian government’s deadly offensive against demonstrators, a spokesman said. A meeting could be held on Monday. But the move is likely to reopen bitter divisions within the Security Council, which has not yet been able to agree even a statement on President... 

Western and Israeli media were quick to announce that the 35-year-old Iranian Dariush Rezai killed on July 23 in Tehran was a prominent nuclear physicist who played an important role in the development of Iran’s nuclear program. Iranian authorities have confirmed the fact of murder. However, according to the latest data, he was not a professor of nuclear physics but a student named Dariush Rezainedzhad,... 

Tomb of St. Philip the Apostle (one of the 12 original disciples of Jesus Christ) discovered in the southwestern province of Denizli in Turkey. Archeologists have found the tomb of St. Philip the Apostle, one of the 12 original disciples of Jesus Christ, in the southwestern province of Denizli in Turkey. The tomb was discovered at the ruins of a recently unearthed church in the ancient Turkish city... 

Israelis march in the centre of Tel Aviv on July 25, 2011, to protest against rising housing prices and social inequalities in the Jewish state. Tens of thousands are taking part in nationwide mass protests in Israel to demand the government provide cheaper housing and lower the cost of living. The biggest protest yet, centered in Tel-Aviv, is planned for Saturday night. ­On July 25, 30,000 people... 

Iran's Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdinejad Nouri. Iran’s Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdinejad Nouri says the country has the fastest scientific growth in the world. “Over the past 30 years, Iran has ranked first in the world, with the eleven-fold increase in science growth,” said Mehdinejad Nouri, quoted by the IRIB... 

Engineering school also hit, Brits call it ‘spy HQ’. A NATO airstrike killed seven people in a hospital in Zlitan, western Libya, on Monday, according to locals and government officials. Medical equipment was visible among the twisted wreckage of the building, the Associated Press reports, after being taken on a government tour of the site. “In this whole area there is no military,”... 

Denies Plan for ‘Permanent Bases’. Speaking today in his first comments after being sworn in, new US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker insisted that the US is in “no rush” to leave the country, which it has occupied militarily for nearly 10 years. “We must proceed carefully,” Crocker insisted, “there will be no rush for the exits.” The Obama Administration announced a... 

The first serious move after months of promised reform, the Syrian government today announced that it was ending its near 50-year ban on opposition political parties, though with a number of caveats. The new law resembles the laws under Mubarak in Egypt, allowing opposition parties but forbidding any based on religion, region, or ethnicity. This would keep the Kurds from forming parties, as well as... 

Residents are seen near a military trailer truck destroyed when a booby-trapped car exploded in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Sunday. 20 Other Troops Wounded in Attack on Convoy. A Yemeni car bomber detonated his payload near a military convoy in the southern port city of Yemen today, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding over 20 others. The attack came as the troops were heading to... 

At least 231 injured after knife-wielding men attack pro-reform protesters marching to defence ministry in Cairo. More than 231 people have been injured in clashes between groups of armed men and pro-reform protesters marching towards Egypt’s ministry of defence in the capital, Cairo, the country’s health ministry said. Thousands calling for the “downfall” of the country’s... 

Supporters of Bashar Assad's government demonstrate on his behalf over the weekend in Damascus, the Syrian capital. Since Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s sharp words last week, the Obama administration has stopped short of calling for President Bashar Assad to resign and has toned down its rhetoric. After sharply escalating its criticism of Syria’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy... 

A US drone. Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has shot down a US spy drone which was flying over the central Iranian province of Qom, a lawmaker says. A member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), Ali Aqazadeh Dafsari, said on Tuesday that the unmanned spy plane was flying near the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province...