VIENNA (Reuters) – An inquiry by the U.N. nuclear watchdog into alleged atom bomb research by Iran has degenerated into a silent standoff a few months after Tehran asserted “the matter is over,” U.N. officials said on Wednesday.
“We had gridlock before but until September at least we were talking to each other. Now it’s worse. There is no communication whatsoever, no progress regarding possible military dimensions in their program,” a senior United Nations official said.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel stood fast Wednesday by its decision to clamp shut cargo crossings at the Gaza Strip, brushing off pleas to ease the blockade from United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.
Israel sealed the passages two weeks ago after a 5-month-old truce between Israel and Gaza militants started unraveling in an effort to halt rocket and mortar fire at Israeli border towns.

Mullah Omar, the elusive leader of the anti-government Taliban, appears to have rejected an offer from Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, of protection in exchange for peace talks.
A Taliban spokesman rejected on Monday the offer of safe passage and reiterated that foreign troops had to leave before negotiations could start.
“As long as foreign occupiers remain in Afghanistan, we aren’t ready for talks because they hold the power and talks won’t bear fruit,” Mullah Brother, the purported deputy leader of the Taliban, told the Reuters news agency by satellite telephone from …

Iraq’s cabinet approved a pact on Sunday that will allow U.S. forces to remain in the country until 2011, bringing an end to nearly a year of intense negotiations. The pact must still be approved by the Iraqi parliament, but Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said he expects that to happen before the end of the month.
The pact, which will govern the presence of U.S. forces beyond the end of this year, is now officially called an agreement on the withdrawal of U.S. troops, a sign of how Iraq’s government …

Osama bin Laden is alive and “putting a lot of energy into his own security,” the director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, said today.
He also claimed, without providing details, that the US intelligence community had disrupted an attack “that would have rivaled the destruction of 9/11.” A senior intelligence official said Hayden was referring to the 2006 liquid bomb on airliners plot that was foiled in London.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed on Monday comments by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama about Tehran’s disputed nuclear ambitions and said it did not expect any major change in the policies of its old foe.
Obama called on Friday for an international effort to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb, saying it was “unacceptable.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi repeated Tehran’s official position that nuclear weapons had no place in the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – Israeli, Palestinian and international negotiators pledged Sunday to continue peace talks launched last year by President Bush, even though the quest for peace will certainly outlast his administration.
But future talks will be held in an increasingly uncertain terrain, with the prospect of a hawk coming to power in Israel’s February parliamentary elections and deeply divided Palestinian factions controlling the West Bank and Gaza. It is also unclear how high Mideast peacemaking will figure on Barack Obama’s agenda.

KAANDAHAR, Afghanistan: A U.S. coalition airstrike and clashes with the Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan earlier this week killed 37 civilians and 26 insurgents, according to an Afghan government report released Friday.
The report also accused the Taliban militants of seeking shelter near a wedding party in the Kandahar province’s Shah Wali Kot district shortly after ambushing a coalition patrol on Monday, according to the findings compiled by the governor of Kandahar province.

Few issues so clearly divide Barack Obama and John McCain as the war in Iraq. Their differences were stark even before the war began: Obama opposed it, McCain favored it.
Then there was the troop surge: Nobody pushed harder for sending additional troops than McCain. Obama didn’t just oppose the surge, he proposed the opposite, calling for the withdrawal of troops.