Politics News Headlines

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits were unchanged last week, holding at the lowest level since the early days of the 2007-2009 recession and giving a fresh sign the battered labour market is healing. Workers filed 351,000 initial claims for state unemployment benefits, the Labor Department …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits were unchanged last week, holding at the lowest level since the early days of the 2007-2009 recession and giving a fresh sign the battered labor market is healing. Workers filed 351,000 initial claims for state unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said on …

LONDON (Reuters) - A gathering of Western and Arab powers plans to challenge Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday to provide humanitarian access within days to civilians under assault by his forces, U.S. officials told reporters. The officials, speaking before a "Friends of Syria" meeting expected to gather more than …

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian security forces lined up and shot dead 13 men and boys from one extended family on Thursday after raiding the village of Kfartoun in Hama province, activists in Hama city said. They said the victims were from two branches of the Asaad family. The motive for the killings was not immediately clear. …

DUBAI - Etisalat has sued its Indian joint venture partners for fraud, the UAE telecoms operator said on Thursday, following the Supreme Court's recent order to cancel its affiliates' licences amid a corruption probe. Etisalat has launched legal proceedings against Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa, top executives at its India …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday apologizing for the burning of copies of the Koran at U.S. military base in Afghanistan, the White House said. "In the letter, delivered by Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker this afternoon in Kabul, the president also expressed …

MESA, Arizona (Reuters) - Mitt Romney is fighting his way back into the driver's seat in the Republican presidential race, putting in a strong debate performance in Arizona and gaining in polls against conservative rival Rick Santorum. An aggressive Romney repeatedly put Santorum on the defensive in a CNN debate on Wednesday …

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday blamed a U.S. military officer for the burning of Korans at a major NATO base which triggered three days of violent protests. Karzai told MPs at his presidential palace that the officer acted "out of ignorance and with poor understanding" of the Koran's importance …

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ever since their first awkward encounter - a hastily arranged meeting in a custodian's office at a Washington airport in 2007 - Iran has been one of the few issues on which Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu have been able to find some common ground. Nearly five years ago, neither man was …

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan soldier joined protests on Thursday against the burning of copies of the Koran at a NATO base and shot dead two foreign troops, Western military sources said, as the Taliban urged security forces to turn their guns on foreigners. Protests against the burning of copies of Islam's most holy book …

TUNIS (Reuters) - Western and Arab powers meeting in Tunis on Friday will issue a "challenge" to President Bashar al-Assad to let in aid for victims of Syria's intensifying conflict - but a Libya-style military intervention is not on the agenda. They come together as international outrage over Assad's repression of unrest …

GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian forces have shot dead unarmed women and children, shelled residential areas and tortured wounded protesters in hospital under orders from the "highest level" of army and government officials, the United Nations said on Thursday. Independent U.N. investigators called for perpetrators of such crimes …

PARIS (Reuters)- After months of reassuring secularist critics, Islamist politicians in Tunisia and Egypt have begun to lay down markers about how Muslim their states should be - and first signs show they want more religion than previously admitted. Islamist parties swept the first free elections in both countries in recent …

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday threatened sanctions against anyone blocking reforms intended to end Somalia's "hopeless, bloody conflict" and eradicate militant and pirate groups seen as a growing menace to world security. Addressing a conference aimed at energizing attempts to end …

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian tanks pushed into a rebel stronghold in the battered city of Homs on Thursday and U.N. investigators accused President Bashar al-Assad's government of crimes against humanity. Rockets, shells and mortar rounds rained on the Baba Amro district, where armed insurgents are holed up with terrified …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday proposed a "bill of rights" that would give consumers greater online privacy protection and could eventually give the government greater powers to police Internet firms such as Google Inc and Facebook. While the privacy bill of rights does not impose any immediate new obligations …

(Reuters) - BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp are liable for civil damages under federal pollution laws over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a U.S. judge ruled, exposing them to billions of dollars in potential fines. Wednesday's decision by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans allows the U.S. government …

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban on Thursday called on security forces to turn their guns on foreign "infidel invaders," the group said on its web site in English, after an Afghan soldier joined violent protests and shot dead two NATO troops. "(The) Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan calls on all the youth present in the …