Headlines News

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no evidence that Osama bin Laden had died, shedding further doubt on a secret document leaked in France that said Saudi secret services believed he had died last month. France, the United States and Britain have said they were unable to confirm the report in French regional daily L'Est Republicain which quoted France's DGSE foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leade ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Dozens of Taliban insurgents have been killed in the latest clashes in the Afghan south where foreign and government forces have been engaged in fierce combat in recent weeks. The Afghan Defence Ministry said 40 insurgents were killed in a battle with Afghan and NATO forces in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday. "An enemy base was totally destroyed," the ministry said ...

By Wafa Amr RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip as early as Monday to try to revive stalled talks on a unity government, aides said. Senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the president would tell Hamas: "If you want a unity government, there are international requirements that need to be met, and that's the only way to form a ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Malcolm Arnold, the composer who won an Oscar for the musical score to the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai", has died after a brief illness. A spokeswoman for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital said Arnold, who was 84, died there on Saturday afternoon. He had been suffering from a chest infection, the BBC said. Arnold was one of the best known British composers of the 20th ce ...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A nine-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, an official of the health ministry's bird flu information centre said on Sunday, taking the country's death toll from the disease to 51. The boy died on Friday at a hospital in Jakarta, Runizar Ruesin, the head of the centre, told Reuters.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip as early as Monday to try to revive stalled talks on a unity government, aides said. "President Abbas will go to Gaza Monday or Tuesday to pursue efforts to form a unity government," senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat told Reuters on Sunday. "He will tell Hamas, 'If you want a unity gove ...

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no evidence that Osama bin Laden had died, shedding further doubt on a secret document leaked in France that said Saudi secret services believed he had died last month. France and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm the report in French regional daily L'Est Republicain which quoted France's DGSE foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had d ...

By Jane Barrett BARCELONA (Reuters) - George Michael, who has caused as much controversy as he has won critical acclaim, kicked off his first tour in 15 years with a mixture of dance hits, ballads and political commentary. Having sworn only last year that his pop days were over, Michael has started a 47-gig tour called "25 Live", celebrating a quarter of a century in the music business. "Well it just goes to show, doesn't it? Never say never," the 43-year-old singer wrote in the tour programm ...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's foreign minister was detained at a New York airport on Saturday, prompting an apology from the U.S. government and compounding already tense relations between the two countries. In New York, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said the United States regretted the incident involving Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro at John F. Kennedy airport. "The ...

By Adrian Croft MANCHESTER (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a key test of his ability to hang on to power on Sunday as Chancellor Gordon Brown sought to allay doubts about his suitability to take over from Blair. The annual conference of the Labour Party opening on Sunday is crucial for both Blair and Brown, whose uneasy relationship has dominated British politics for nearly a decade. Blair, who quelled a party revolt this month by pledging to step down within a year, will hope to  ...