The UN in the Gaza Strip says it will run out of food aid in two days unless Israel’s blockade – which it describes as “shameful and unacceptable” – eases.
The UN refugee agency Unrwa, which distributes food to half of Gaza’s 1,5m people, called the blockade “a physical as well as a mental punishment”.
Israel is now allowing a limited amount of fuel across the border, but it is still blocking food deliveries.
It says it tightened sanctions because of rocket attacks by militants.
The Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, said …

At least 28 people were killed, including women and schoolgirls, and dozens wounded in a triple bombing in a Baghdad market on Monday, the deadliest attack to rock the Iraqi capital in months, security officials said.
The attackers detonated a car bomb in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, then minutes later a suicide bomber ran into the resulting melee and blew up, according to defence and interior ministry officials.
A third explosion caused by a roadside bomb around 30 metres (yards) from the first two blasts tore through the market moments …

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) — Three men convicted of killing 202 people in a 2002 bombing at two nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali were executed by firing squad early Sunday.
Imam Samudra, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and his brother Mukhlas, who is also known as Ali Ghufron, were executed at 12:15 a.m. at Nusa Kampangan prison, said Jasman Panjaitan, a spokesman for Indonesia’s attorney-general.
Autopsies were performed the men before the bodies were turned over to their families, Panjaitan said.

The body of Saddam Hussein was stabbed six times after he was executed, according to the head guard at the former president’s tomb north of Baghdad, who was one of the people that helped bury the corpse.
The claim is categorically denied by the head of Saddam’s tribe. The Iraqi Government similarly denies any mutilation took place after the dictator was hanged on December 30, 2006, for crimes against humanity.

Fierce fighting between government and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo is causing a humanitarian catastrophe, the Red Cross has said.
It said the number of displaced people was growing by the hour and that the precarious security situation was making it difficult to deliver aid.
Intense diplomatic efforts are under way to end the crisis, which has displaced a total of 250,000 people.
A tense ceasefire is holding in and around the eastern city of Goma.

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Eleven bomb blasts in quick succession ripped through Guwahati and three other towns in Assam, killing at least 68 people and wounding 335, police said.
No one has so far claimed responsibility for the bomb blasts, which security analysts said appeared to be coordinated.
Assam has been a focus of a separatist insurgency for decades, but it has also recently suffered bomb attacks blamed on Islamist militants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Many of Thursday’s blasts were in crowded markets in the state and many bombs were hidden in motorcycles …

BAGHDAD – The deadly U.S. raid into Syria may complicate efforts to win approval for a new U.S.-Iraqi security deal by drawing attention to a fact many Iraqis detest — that they can’t control everything American forces might do.
Syrian officials say U.S. troops and helicopters launched the raid Sunday inside Syrian territory close to the Iraqi border, killing eight people.
The U.S. command in Baghdad would not comment, but a U.S. military official said American special forces targeted the network that smuggles fighters and weapons into Iraq. The official spoke …

KABUL) – Eight Afghan employees of a private road construction company were killed in international air strikes aimed at insurgents in central Afghanistan at the weekend, police said Monday.
The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said it was investigating the claims, which surfaced on Sunday when local media reports said up to 23 guards of a private road construction company were killed in the strikes in Ghazni.
Ghazni police chief Mohammad Zaman told AFP on Monday that eight people had died in the action in the Qarabagh area.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike on the house of a Taliban commander inside Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan killed up to 20 people Monday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The reported strike occurred in the South Waziristan region, part of Pakistan’s wild border zone that is considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

Iraq has ruled out the possibility of signing any agreement with Britain before the finalization of a security deal with the United States.
“Al-Maliki told the British side that Iraq will discuss the matter after finalizing the agreement with the US,” Haydar al-Abadi, a Parliamentarian from the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) told the Voices of Iraq news agency.
Maliki has called for the withdrawal of British combat troops from the country after their UN mandate expires at the end of 2008.