PRAIA — Finnish authorities dismissed talk Sunday that the Arctic Sea was bearing a cargo of nuclear material, as Russia and NATO joined forces in an international hunt for the missing vessel.
Jukka Laaksonen, head of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, said firefighters conducted radiation tests on the ship — last reported off Cape Verde — at a port in Finland before it began a voyage full of intrigue.
But he dismissed as "stupid rumours" reports in British and Finnish newspapers that the ship could be carrying a "secret" nuclear …

Khirbet Silm, south Lebanon – Israel and its arch foe Hezbollah are waging an increasingly heated war of words, fanning concerns about another bruising encounter between the two enemies who fought a devastating but inconclusive conflict in 2006.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Militants managed to penetrate one of the safest nooks of Kabul to detonate a massive car bomb Saturday, shaking the confidence of voters just five days before presidential elections.
The powerful blast, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility, killed seven Afghan civilians and wounded 91 more. The bomb went off outside NATO headquarters just after 8:30 Saturday morning, the beginning of the Afghan workweek. It sent a plume of smoke visible around Kabul and knocked out glass windows more than 500 feet away.

Indonesian police Saturday were studying DNA evidence from the remains of two suicide bombers who carried out twin attacks on luxury Jakarta hotels, as security was tightened across the country.
Suspected Islamist suicide bombers detonated powerful devices at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in an upmarket business district Friday, leaving nine dead and up to 50 injured including at least 18 foreigners.
A New Zealand businessman was confirmed dead and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is due in Jakarta later Saturday, said he feared the worst for three missing Australians, …

The civilian death toll during the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war was between 3,000 and 5,000, a senior government official estimated Thursday.
Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary in Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, told a British newspaper, The Guardian, that earlier reports of many as 20,000 civilians being killed in the end stages of the years-long Tamil Tigers uprising were unverified and wrong.

Palestinian Fatah has said it was “encouraged” by the meeting between Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his US counterpart in the White House, while Hamas said the encounter would lead to nothing.
“Palestinians are encouraged by the commitment President Obama and his administration have shown to Middle East peace,” Saeb Erakat, a Fatah member and the Palestinians’ top official said on Friday.

Britain said on Sunday it was hopeful the United Nations Security Council will deliver a resolution against North Korea that includes tougher financial sanctions, after the isolated state’s nuclear test last week.
“There is a genuine world concern, and hopefully a consensus will come from that,” Ann Taylor, British Minister for International Defense and Security, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday on the sidelines of a regional defense conference.

Colombo – Amnesty International called Saturday for an independent probe into the number of civilians killed in the final weeks of Sri Lanka’s civil war and also urged the UN to reveal its own estimates.
The call by the rights group followed a report in the Times of London newspaper on Friday citing confidential UN reports that more than 20,000 civilians were killed by Sri Lankan army shelling.
The report followed weeks of allegations that large numbers of civilians had been killed as the army closed in on Tamil Tiger rebels to …