Up-to-the-minute news from around the world

And on the third day, they united — behind Barack Obama, against John McCain, for a new way of doing business in the world. At 4:48 p.m. Wednesday, in a raucous Pepsi Center, the delegates at the Democratic National Convention made history when they officially nominated Obama as the party's presidential candidate — the first African-American to ever move so close to the nation's highest office. Joe Biden called for a change of course in foreign policy. [ More ]

Former President Bill Clinton has given his firm backing to US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, saying he "is the man for this job." Mr. Clinton was given an enthusiastic welcome by delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver. In an address that was bound to be closely scrutinized for signs of discord, he struck a conciliatory note and stressed that he believed Mr. Obama was ready to be president. He said he was proud of his wife for her campaign but that her supporters should now back Obama. [ More ]

Italians have been left shocked by a ferocious assault on Franciscan monks by hooded thugs at a monastery in the foothills of the Alps, which has been compared to incidents seen in the film 'A Clockwork Orange.' Father Sergio Baldin, 48, the guardian of the San Colombano Belmonte monastery near Turin, and three elderly monks from the Franciscan order of Friars Minor, were having dinner when they were attacked by three hooded men who gagged and bound them before punching, kicking and beating them with clubs. [ More ]

A column of people three blocks long, led by members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, streamed from the Denver Coliseum on Wednesday in an anti-war protest march to the Pepsi Center, where the Democratic National Convention is being staged. As many as 50 soldiers wearing army fatigues led the peaceful protest into downtown, toward the Pepsi Center as police and bystanders watched. "We are the veterans! The Iraq War veterans! The anti-war veterans!" they chanted. "We are soldiers! Anti-war soldiers!" [ More ]

"Old John" McCain has decided on his running mate, two Republican strategists in contact with McCain's campaign said Wednesday. He is expected to reveal his choice at a rally at a basketball arena in Dayton, Ohio, at 11 a.m. Friday. Republicans close to the campaign said that the top contenders remained the same three men who have been the source of speculation for weeks: former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and, possibly, Senator Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut. [ More ]

Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration's record on prisoner interrogations, telling a veterans' group that its use of "alternative" techniques against suspects was legal and proper. "No nation in the world takes human rights more seriously than the United States," Cheney said at the American Legion's annual convention. George Bush acknowledged in 2006 that top operatives of the al Qaeda terrorist movement had been held in CIA custody and subjected to what he called "alternative" interrogation techniques. [ More ]

The Bush administration is raising the stakes in a court fight that could change the balance of power between the White House and Congress. Justice Department lawyers said they will soon ask a federal appeals court not to force the president's top advisers to comply with congressional subpoenas next month. Bush argues Congress doesn't have the authority to demand information from his aides. U.S. District Judge John Bates strongly rejected that stance last month, ordering former White House counsel Harriet Miers to testify. [ More ]

More than 30 Taliban extremists and four policemen were killed in a series of clashes, airstrikes and bombings in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday. The Taliban attacked a police checkpoint in the Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province Tuesday, sparking a clash that killed 18 militants, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said. The militants attacked the officers guarding a government compound in the district before being repelled by the police. There were no casualties among Afghan troops. [ More ]

A university president and a top local official in a restive province north of Baghdad are suspected of giving weapons and government cars to al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents. The leak of the reports aimed at countering claims by Sunni Muslim politicians that Shiite-led security forces arrested the two on political grounds. Nazar al-Khafaji, University of Diyala president, and Hussein al-Zubaidi, head of the provincial council's security committee, were arrested last week. Al-Khafaji was led from his home with a hood over his head. [ More ]

At least 2.5 million people in India are marooned after heavy monsoon rains lashed their villages, a government minister said. Indian emergency services are rushing supplies to the victims. A junior agriculture minister, said on Wednesday one million tons of rice and wheat would be doled out after the Kosi river burst its banks and flooded huge swathes of the eastern state of Bihar. Food riots erupted in eastern India, where about 250,000 houses have been destroyed in what officials say are the worst floods in fifty years. [ More ]

Drought and anti-drug campaigns helped slash Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation by 19 percent this year compared to 2007, but the country is still far and away the world's leading source of the heroin-producing crop, the U.N. said Tuesday. Successful anti-poppy campaigns in the country's north and east were mainly to thank for the drop in production but fields in the south -- where the Taliban insurgency is strongest -- remain awash in poppies, which provide the main ingredient for heroin, a U.N. report said. [ More ]

A suicide bomber has struck at an Iraqi security checkpoint in the northern Diyala province, killing at least 28 people and wounding 42 others, police say. The bomber on Tuesday, wearing an explosives vest, blew himself up in a crowd of Iraqi police recruits in the town of Jalawla. As other parts of the country have stabilized over the last year, Diyala has remained one of the most violent parts of the country. The ethnically and religiously mixed province north of Baghdad has emerged as the most violent part of Iraq. [ More ]

Zimbabwe's opposition heckled Robert Mugabe in a rare show of defiance when the "president" opened "parliament" with pomp and his familiar denunciations of the West. Opposition legislators shouted Mugabe's party "is rotten!" and refused to stand when the president entered. The jeers occasionally drowned out his speech. Mugabe, looking annoyed, raced through the speech. The show of defiance was unheard of in a country where the president's political opponents are regularly arrested and roughed up. [ More ]

Iraqi police publicly questioned a teenage girl after she was allegedly caught wearing an explosives belt, parading her in front of reporters and pressing her to confess she was planning a suicide bombing. Police distributed videos of the arrest and public interrogation to the media on Monday. The girl gave her first name as Rania and said she was born in 1993. In the video of the arrest, a policeman could be heard saying that when she was picked up, she was initially unable to talk because she had been given drugs. [ More ]

Police in the Indian state of Orissa say suspected Hindu extremists have set fire to an orphanage run by Christian missionaries, burning a woman to death. The mob reportedly ordered people out of the building before setting it alight. But the woman - a cook at the orphanage - was thrown into the burning building when she tried to stop them from attacking the children. Local Hindus went on the rampage after the killing of one of their leaders. His supporters suspect Christians but police believe he was killed by Maoist rebels. [ More ]

Pakistan's ruling coalition collapsed Monday, torn apart by internal bickering just a week after Pervez Musharraf's ouster and underscoring fears that the government would be distracted from its fight against Islamic extremists. Militants have stepped up their campaign of violence in recent months, prompting the government Monday to ban the Taliban. The move came after the Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings against one of Pakistan's most sensitive military installations that left 67 dead. [ More ]

Barack Obama says Joe Biden is ready to step in as president. He's not bad in the role of attack dog, either, wasting no time gnawing at GOP rival John McCain. "He will have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at" when considering his own economic future, Biden said - a blistering reference to McCain's embarrassing admission, particularly during a period of financial turmoil, that he didn't know how many homes he and his ultra-wealthy wife own. [ More ]

The weakened US dollar has fallen out of favor with organized crime groups to pay for drug shipments or to settle scores, a Canadian government report said. And if the greenback continues its slide in 2008, as expected, more and more criminals are likely to exchange euros for illicit goods, said Criminal Intelligence Service Canada in its annual report. "The US dollar weakened significantly against other major currencies in 2007 and according to some economists, is expected to depreciate further in 2008," said the report. [ More ]

Gunmen near Somalia's capital have seized two freelance reporters, including a Canadian. The Red Deer Advocate newspaper has confirmed that Amanda Lindhout is one of the kidnapped journalists. Lindhout and an unidentified Australian were apparently captured as they traveled to a refugee camp southwest of Mogadishu. "We don't know if it's political or a money issue," said a spokesperson for Reporters Without Borders. He said officials would first have to determine which clan may be responsible for the kidnapping. [ More ]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his verbal attacks on arch-foe Israel on Saturday, accusing it of dragging the world into turmoil and predicting its demise. "About 2,000 organized Zionists and 7,000 to 8,000 agents of Zionism have dragged the world into turmoil," Ahmadinejad told a rally carried live on state television. He said that if the West does not restrain Zionism, "the powerful hand of the nations will clean these sources of corruption from the face of the earth," without specifying which nations. [ More ]

Brazil has extradited one of the most powerful leaders of Colombia's cocaine cartels to the United States, where he is wanted on racketeering and drug charges. Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia was flown from a prison in Mato Grosso do Sul state and left Brazil from the Amazon region city of Manaus accompanied by US federal agents, Brazilian police said. Romeu Tuma, the National Secretary of Justice, said Abadia's pending extradition showed that "Brazil was doing its part in combating international organized crime." [ More ]

A former Iraqi cabinet minister has been sentenced to death for ordering the murder of a Sunni politician's two sons. Assad Kamal al-Hashemi, also a Sunni, resigned as culture minister and went into hiding last year when he was first charged in the February 2005 attack on parliamentary candidate Mithal al-Alusi. Al-Alusi's two sons were killed in the attack. The Central Criminal Court of Iraq handed down a guilty verdict and death sentence in absentia for al-Hashemi on Wednesday, according to an Iraqi court official. [ More ]

Former pop singer Gary Glitter has been ordered to sign the sex offenders' register after arriving back in the UK. Glitter, who spent 27 months in a Vietnam jail for abusing two girls, left Heathrow airport for an undisclosed location on his return. His solicitor called the singer's conviction a "travesty of justice." Glitter, 64, whose real name is Paul Gadd, became famous as a glam-rocker in the 1970s. He said his conviction was the result of an "unfair trial." He could face an order prohibiting him from going near children or using the internet. [ More ]

The death of 10 French soldiers in an ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan has stoked a cry at home for France to rethink its commitment to the 7-year mission led by the US. Most French voters want out, and the opposition is ratcheting up the pressure on Sarkozy's government — though analysts say France and other allies will dig in for the fight even as they insist upon a new look at NATO's strategy against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The word "quagmire" pops up repeatedly when Afghanistan is discussed in Paris political circles. [ More ]

Two boats carrying dozens of international activists sailed into the Gaza Strip Saturday in defiance of an Israeli blockade, receiving a jubilant welcome from thousands of Palestinians. The boats docked in Gaza City after a two-day journey marred by communications troubles and rough seas. As they arrived, children swarmed around and leaped into the water in joy, while cheering residents looked on from the shore. On one of the boats, "End Occupation" was written in large letters and Palestinian flags snapped in the wind. [ More ]

Scores of people are reported to have been killed amid renewed fighting and a suicide bomb attack in Pakistan. At least 18 were killed and 10 wounded after a suicide bomber drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into a police station in Swat Valley Saturday. Taliban extremists claimed responsibility for the blast on Saturday and vowed to carry out more strikes if the government did not stop military operations in the region. Shortly after, Pakistani troops killed 35 fighters after Taliban terrorists ambushed a security patrol. [ More ]

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