Politics - AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Key Democratic allies in the US health care battle warned that a Senate bill required major changes if it was to earn their support and give President Barack Obama a crucial victory on his top domestic priority.

KABUL (AFP) - The United States on Monday signed an agreement giving 38.7 million dollars to 27 Afghan provinces that eliminated or significantly reduced opium production in the world's biggest supplier country.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The worst of US job losses are expected to be over by March 2010 as the economic grows after a long recession, a poll of business economists showed Monday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama will decide "in the coming days" whether to attend a United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, a senior administration official said Monday.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AFP) - Countless commanders in the US Army have prepared battalions for war since the terrorist attacks of September 11, but none of them had do it after losing soldiers in a shooting spree on a home base.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The number of US hate crime victims rose slightly last year to nearly 9,700 from 9,500 in 2007, with most people targeted because of their skin color, the FBI said Monday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday started a high-profile state visit to the United States with a call on President Barack Obama to stay committed on Afghanistan and pressure Pakistan.

HALIFAX, Canada (AFP) - The United States on Sunday urged Iran to "engage" the West at a new security forum in Canada, where allied commanders also agreed setting an Afghanistan exit date would only serve to embolden the Taliban.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has voiced confidence that the US economy will make a strong recovery and poured cold water on talk of dropping the dollar as the key global currency.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The nephew of ex-president John F. Kennedy, a US lawmaker, has been barred from receiving communion at his Catholic church due to his support for abortion rights, a newspaper reported Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two Chinese intellectuals who helped draft a bold petition for democracy appealed Sunday to US President Barack Obama to make human rights integral to his approach to Beijing, which they warned would not move on its own.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Back from an Asia tour, President Barack Obama called Saturday for the United States to produce more goods to sell across the Pacific, touting trade as a way to revive the troubled US economy.

HALIFAX, Canada (AFP) - Despite fierce public pressure to end the war in Afghanistan eight years on, politicians and experts on Saturday decried calls for setting an exit date they say would embolden the Taliban.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias in several parts of Afghanistan in hopes for a large-scale tribal rebellion against the radical Islamic movement, The New York Times reported.

SEOUL (AFP) - A group of US experts on Korean affairs will visit Pyongyang Saturday for talks with policy makers regarding North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, a news report said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US and Paraguayan representatives held talks in Washington Saturday to shore up trade ties and extend an intellectual rights accord, US officials said.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Saturday praised US President Barack Obama for taking up the issue of Tibet "very seriously" with Chinese leaders on his recent trip to China.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Supporters of Taiwan in the US Congress pushed for President Barack Obama to move toward selling arms to the island, a step that would likely set back warming US ties with China.