South Korea and the United States raised the military alert level for the peninsula on Thursday after the communist North warned the truce ending the Korean War was dead and it was ready to attack.
North Korea ramped up tensions this week with a series of provocations rarely seen since the 1950-53 Korean War, including war threats, missile launches and a nuclear test that puts it closer to having an atomic bomb.
The joint command for the 28,500 U.S. troops that support South Korea’s 670,000 soldiers has raised its alert a …

The Sri Lankan Government has blocked access to aid workers trying to help the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by the army’s victory over the Tamil Tigers, raising the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe.
In the capital, Colombo, President Rajapakse announced the “complete defeat” of the rebels yesterday as state television showed pictures of what was said to be the corpse of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ leader. Mr Rajapakse vowed in an address to the nation to press ahead with a “homegrown political solution” to end ethnic divisions between the majority Sinhalese …

The suspected leader of a radical Islamist group linked to the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested 15 months after he escaped from a high security prison in Singapore, the government said on Friday.
Mas Selamat Kastari was the alleged mastermind of a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore’s Changi Airport.
Singapore authorities have also accused him of planning several truck bomb attacks across the island state.

North Korea defied the United States, China and a series of United Nations resolutions by launching a rocket on Sunday that the country said was designed to propel a satellite into space, but that much of the world viewed as an effort to prove it is edging toward the capability to shoot a nuclear warhead on a longer-range missile.
North Korea launched the rocket at 11:30 a.m. local time, or 10:30 NYTime said the office of the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak. Early reports from the Japanese prime minister’s office …

An audio recording attributed to al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden denounces Somalia’s new president, and urges Somalis to topple him.
The recording appeared Thursday on Web sites used by al-Qaida-linked militant groups.
The speaker says Somalis should fight and dethrone President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who the recording claims is “paid by the enemies” of al-Qaida’s cause.
The 11.5-minute message was entitled “Fight On, Champions of Somalia” and included a picture of bin Laden with the audio.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, resigned on Saturday in a move intended to pave the way for a power-sharing deal between the two rival Palestinian political forces – Hamas and Fatah.
But Hamas officials quickly rebuffed Mr Fayyad’s announcement, casting doubt on whether or not his gesture would help lead to reconciliation between the sides.
The main goal of such a government would be to end the current situation in which the militant Hamas movement rules the Gaza Strip and Fatah, considered more moderate and supported by the West, rules the …

An Internet security company claims that Iran has taken advantage of a computer security breach to obtain engineering and communications information about Marine One, President Barack Obama’s helicopter, according to a report by WPXI, NBC’s affiliate in Pittsburgh.
Tiversa, headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pa., reportedly discovered a security breach that led to the transfer of military information to an Iranian IP address, according to WPXI. The information is said to include planned engineering upgrades, avionic schematics, and computer network information.

One day before U.S. President Barack Obama’s Canadian visit last week, Canadian fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers near Canadian air space, the defense minister said Friday.
“At no time did Russian planes enter Canadian air space, but within 24 hours of the president’s visit here … we did scramble F-18 fighter planes from NORAD in Canada command,” Peter MacKay said in a news conference in Ottawa.
The Russian planes were in international waters, about 118 miles (190 kilometers) northeast of Tuktoyuktuk, in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The bodies of dozens of officers have been found stuffed into drains and buried in shallow graves at a border compound in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, following a mutiny by hundreds of guards.
The corpses of at least 66 people were unearthed at the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) headquarters on Friday, two days after a revolt by hundreds of border guards protesting over pay and conditions.
Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque in Dhaka said: “The senior officers killed are just the first out of the mass graves.
“There are flies all over the place, …

Bangladeshi border guards who staged an armed mutiny have begun laying down their arms, cabinet minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak has told reporters.
The news, which is unconfirmed, comes hours after PM Sheikh Hasina offered the troops a general amnesty.
At least five people died and a number were wounded in the mutiny, which was said to be over pay, conditions, career advancement and alleged discrimination.
The rebels battled troops sent to quell the mutiny for several hours.