Political Times Daily .org

Reuters - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Afghans on Wednesday to push energetically for a peace settlement with Taliban insurgents and said Afghanistan's neighbors must support such an agreement.

AP - A new election law issued by Myanmar's ruling military bars pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from joining a political party and thus from running in upcoming elections, state-run newspapers said Wednesday.

AP - Indonesia's president says a top-ranked Southeast Asian militant wanted for planning the 2002 Bali bombings has been identified as the man shot dead by police in a raid on the island of Java.

AP - Authorities say a U.S.-born hitman is fighting the brother of a deceased drug lord for control of the Beltran-Leyva cartel, marking what may be the first time an American has risen to the very top ranks of Mexican gangs.

AFP - Fresh gunfire has sent Christian villagers in Nigeria fleeing as a senior official accused the country's military chiefs of having ignored warnings about last weekend's massacre.

AP - An Iranian accused of masterminding the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed 85 people dismissed the allegations as "lies" on Tuesday and said he won't appear before an Argentine court.

AP - Vice President Joe Biden condemned an Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes in disputed east Jerusalem on Tuesday — a disagreement that tarnished a high-profile visit that had been aimed at repairing ties with the Jewish state and kickstarting Mideast peace talks.

Reuters - Canada's largest airline has learned it sometimes has to take a back seat to the country's biggest sporting passion, ice hockey, the head of Air Canada said on Tuesday.

AP - Is the Middle East about to go officially nuclear?

AFP - A baby elephant believed to have died during labour was born alive at an Australian zoo on Wednesday, amazing its keepers and defying expert opinion that such an outcome would take a "miracle".

McClatchy Newspapers - JERUSALEM — Hours after the arrival Tuesday of Vice President Joe Biden to help launch indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israel announced the construction of 1,600 homes in a settlement block in mostly Arab East Jerusalem, an open rebuff that led Biden to issue a sharply worded condemnation.

AP - United States intelligence agencies misled key allies, including Britain, about its mistreatment of suspected terrorists, the former head of the country's domestic spy agency, MI5, said Tuesday.

OneWorld.net - ABUJA, Mar 8 (IRIN) - Hundreds of people in the city of Jos, 350km northeast of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, have been buried in mass graves after machete-wielding intruders attacked residents at 3 a.m. (local time) on 7 March.

AP - China joined India on Tuesday in giving qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Christian Science Monitor - For decades, Japan's weekly political calendar was fixed. Before the cabinet met on Tuesdays, the top civil servants from each ministry would meet on Mondays. If the bureaucrats had not already set government policy, the wags said, the ministers would have nothing to rubber stamp.

Time.com - Alexei Navalny is a unique type of opposition figure in Russia. He believes the most effective way to challenge the ruling class is not through elections, but by acquiring stock

Time.com - While all the signs point to Mossad as the perpetrator and the Israelis are hardly denying it, the killing of a top Hamas operative may have caused the Israelis problems on other fronts