North Korea fired three short-range missiles from its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's Defence Ministry said, prompting Western powers to urge Pyongyang to exercise restraint. Launches by the North of short-range missiles are not uncommon but, after recent warnings from the communist state of impending nuclear war, such actions raise concerns about the region's security. "North Korea fired short-range guided missiles twice in the morning and once in the afternoon off its east coast," an official at the South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman's office said by telephone. The official declined to speculate on whether the missiles had been fired as part of a drill or training exercise. "In case of any provocation, the ministry will keep monitoring the situation and remain on alert," he said. More»

President Barack Obama's White House fought and lost a battle to avoid making public what it claimed were confidential records of internal deliberations over the attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya last September. Obama administration officials portray their unsuccessful effort to avoid disclosing the records as the end result of a process of "accommodation" which the government's executive branch routinely uses to respond to frequent requests and subpoenas by Congress for sensitive materials. But some politicians and legal experts say the administration's decision to not release the records sooner may have backfired, prolonging the controversy and deepening the determination of critics in Congress to keep the story alive. "I don't trust them as far as I can throw them," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who accused the administration of trying to "stonewall Congress at every turn." The administration at first refused to show copies of the Benghazi records, including emails and drafts of what proved to be inaccurate public "talking points" about the attack, to anyone outside the executive branch. More»

Official figures show France has entered its second recession in four years after the economy shrank by 0.2% in the first quarter of the year. Its economy shrank by the same amount in the last quarter of 2012. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. France has record unemployment and low business and consumer confidence. German figures, also released, showed its economy, the eurozone's strongest, grew by just 0.1% in the first quarter. France entered its worst recession since World War II in 2009. Although it was thought to have been in recession in 2012, these figures have now been revised to show only one quarter of negative growth. The news comes on the first anniversary of Francois Hollande being sworn in as president. More»

President Barack Obama vowed on Monday to work to bring the Syrian government and rebels to the negotiating table in Geneva in coming weeks but warned that it will be hard to get the situation under control in Syria's civil war. Even as Obama backed a new joint US-Russian effort to seek a diplomatic solution in Syria, he cited an array of obstacles to a credible peace process, including the involvement of Iran, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in the two-year-old conflict. Obama, holding a joint White House news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, injected a note of caution after Washington and Moscow raised hopes last week with an agreement to try to arrange an international peace conference on Syria. With Syria's factional and sectarian hatreds more entrenched than ever and President Bashar al-Assad showing no sign of a willingness to give up power, it was far from clear whether the warring sides were ready to talk. More»

A military judge found a US soldier guilty Monday of killing five of his colleagues in Iraq four years ago, a spokesman said, after the defendant made a plea deal to escape a death sentence. Army Sergeant John Russell was convicted over the May 2009 murders at a clinic for soldiers suffering from war-related stress at Camp Liberty, the largest US base in Iraq. Russell, who has previously denied responsibility, admitted the killings last month, in a plea deal worked out by his lawyers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), in the northwestern US state of Washington. On Monday, the judge formally found him guilty. "Sgt. Russell was found guilty of premeditated murder," Gary Dangerfield, spokesman for the military base south of Seattle, told AFP. More»

Toppled in a 1999 military coup, jailed and exiled, Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif has made a triumphant election comeback and looks set to form a stable government capable of implementing reforms needed to rescue the fragile economy. Sharif may not win enough seats to rule on his own but has built up enough momentum to avoid having to form a coalition with his main rivals, former cricketer Imran Khan's Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The steel magnate held off a challenge from Khan, who had hoped to break decades of dominance by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the PPP, led by the Bhutto family. The two parties have formed governments whenever the military, the most powerful institution in the nuclear-armed nation, has allowed civilian rule. U.S. President Barack Obama congratulated Pakistanis for the successful election and said the United States would work with the new government as an equal partner. More»

Nineteen people including two children were shot in New Orleans on Sunday when gunfire erupted at a Mother's Day parade, and city police said they were searching for three suspects. Ten men, seven woman, a girl and a boy both age 10 were hit when wild gunfire opened up at about 1:45 p.m. as the parade marched along North Villere Street, according to police spokesman Garry Flot. Two victims are undergoing surgery, Flot said in a statement. The children were grazed and are in good condition, he said. It was unclear if the victims were marching or bystanders watching the parade. Police superintendent Ronal Serpas told reporters that officers saw three suspects running away, with one about age 18 to 22. No arrests were made. "It appears that these two or three people, for reasons unknown to us, started shooting at, towards or in the crowd," Serpas said, adding that the incident was over in "just a couple of seconds." More»

Toppled in a 1999 coup, jailed and exiled, Nawaz Sharif has made a triumphant election comeback and on Sunday was heading for a third term as Pakistan's prime minister. In one sense, the polls were a democratic landmark, marking the first time one elected government was to replace another in a country vulnerable to military takeovers. But Saturday's vote failed to realize the hopes of many that the hold of patronage-based parties would end after years of misrule and corruption in the strategic U.S. ally. Sharif held off a challenge from former cricket star Imran Khan who had hoped to break decades of dominance by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), led by the Bhutto family. More»

Pakistanis voted in a landmark test of democracy on Saturday and were quickly reminded of the militant violence that plagues the country, with election-related bombings in several cities. An attack on the office of the Awami National Party (ANP) in the commercial capital, Karachi, killed 10 people and wounded 30, followed by another blast minutes later. An explosion destroyed an ANP office in the northwest. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Television channels also reported an explosion in the city of Peshawar. Pakistan's Taliban, who are close to al Qaeda, have killed over 110 people in election-related violence since April. The group, which is fighting to topple the U.S.-backed government, regards the elections as un-Islamic. More»

U.S. forces in Europe are on a heightened state of alert in response to a deteriorating security situation in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, a U.S. military official said Friday. Hundreds of Libyan activists protested Friday in Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobrouk. They denounced the use of force by the country's unruly militias. The protesters accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to seize power by pushing through a contentious law that would prevent officials who had served under former dictator Moammar Gadhafi from working in government. Heavily armed militias have surrounded government buildings in Tripoli over the past month, blocking access to ministries to push the parliament to pass the Brotherhood-supported law. The alert order applies to a U.S. special operations team based in Stuttgart, Germany, as well as a Marine group of air and ground forces based in Moron, Spain, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. More»