Sydney: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard won the support of a key independent MP on Thursday, leaving her just two seats from regaining power and within reach of ending a crippling political crisis.

Former Iraq war whistle-blower Andrew Wilkie said Gillard’s centre-left Labor party was best placed to deliver “stable” and “competent” government after the August 21 election returned the first hung parliament in 70 years.
“I have judged that it is the Australian Labor Party that best meets my criteria that the next government must be stable, must be competent and …

Washington: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday publicly demanded a freeze on all Israeli settlement activity at the launch of landmark US-mediated peace talks at the White House.

“We also reiterate our commitment to carry out our obligations and we call on Israelis to carry out their obligations including a freeze on all settlement activities,” Abbas said at the White House.
He said the demand was not a “precondition” to direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which open here on Thursday, but a goal to implement an “agreed obligation.”
Abbas also called for an end …

Washington: After more than seven years of war, President Barack Obama declared the combat mission in Iraq over on Tuesday night, saying that’s in the best interests of both Iraqis and Americans and that ending combat will help the United States focus on new priorities, especially restoring the economy.

In excerpts released by the White House ahead of a prime-time Oval Office address to mark the formal transition of security authority in Iraq , Obama said that “now, it is time to turn the page.”
Turning his attention to the issue dominant …

Chile: The effort to save 33 men trapped deep in a Chilean mine is an unprecedented challenge, mining safety experts said Tuesday. It means months of drilling, then a harrowing three-hour trip in a cage up a narrow hole carved through solid rock.

If all of that is successful, the freed men will emerge from the earth and “feel born again,” said an American miner who was part of a group dramatically rescued in 2002 with similar techniques. But that rescue pulled men from a spot only one-tenth as deep.
“They’re facing …

Kabul: NATO says four American troops have been killed in a roadside bomb explosion in eastern Afghanistan.

Tuesday’s deaths come amid a particularly bloody period for American forces in the country, with 18 service members killed since Saturday to bring this month’s total to 53. Another member of the international coalition whose nationality has not been released was killed on Monday.
July was the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, with 66 killed.
Southern and eastern Afghanistan have seen the heaviest fighting. Those areas are also closest to …

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Hurricane Earl, now a powerful Category 4 storm, barreled toward the U.S. coast early Tuesday after battering tiny islands across the northeastern Caribbean with heavy rain and winds that damaged homes and toppled power lines.

Earl is forecast to potentially brush the U.S. East Coast late Thursday, before curving back out to sea, potentially swiping New England or far-eastern Canada. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned coastal residents from North Carolina to Maine to watch the storm closely.
“Any small shift in the track could dramatically alter whether …