Recent deaths, attacks by militias cast doubts as Baghdad prepares to stand aloneBAGHDAD (AP) ― Frequent bombings, assassinations and a resurgence in violence by Shiite militias have made Iraq more dangerous now than it was just a year ago, a U.S. government watchdog concludes in a report released Saturday.The findings come during what U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart

World News July 31, 2011

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) ― An assassin struck at the heart of President Hamid Karzai’s political machine in southern Afghanistan Wednesday, killing the mayor of Kandahar with an exploding turban and deepening a power vacuum in the Taliban’s main stronghold.The slaying of Mayor Ghulam Haider Hamidi was the third killing of a Karzai associate in a little more than two weeks. The attacks have jeopa

World News July 28, 2011

RABAT (AFP) ― A military transport plane slammed into a mountainside in bad weather in southern Morocco on Tuesday, killing all 80 people on board, hospital and military sources said.King Mohammed VI announced three days of national mourning following the crash, one of the deadliest in the country’s history.The army said 78 people were killed on the spot after the Hercules C-130 crashed on the edg

World News July 27, 2011

PRISTINA (AP) ― Kosovo’s Prime Minister has defended an order for his special police to take control of two contested border crossings with Serbia, saying it was “the right decision” despite condemnation from the European Union.Hashim Thaci said the operation in which a member of the police unit died and four others were slightly injured was a “concrete step in establishing the rule of law” in the

World News July 27, 2011

HANOI (AP) ― Vietnam’s lawmaking National Assembly appointed Truong Tan Sang as the communist country’s new president Monday amid challenges at home with the economy and abroad with China over disputed territory in the South China Sea.Sang, 62, a southerner who was a former mayor and party chief in Ho Chi Minh City, had most recently served as the de facto No. 2 in charge of the Communist Party, r

World News July 26, 2011

Fierce fighting serves as reminder that war is not over in some partsSIRAQULA, Afghanistan (AP) ― Shortly after the call to prayer resounded over the harvested poppy fields near Salaam Bazaar, two Taliban commanders were heard on their radios asking how their forces were doing.The number of Taliban fighters who respond varies, but in the last month a squad of U.S. Marines at a small patrol base he

World News July 25, 2011