INTERNATIONAL

Interim leader's speech fails to convince protesters blocking off Cairo bureaucratic headquarters and road to Suez canal   Egyptian protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Photograph: Mohamed Hossam/AFP/Getty Images     Protests have brought Egypt's administrative and commercial nerve centres to a standstill , as government attempts to stem a growing wave of opposition to military rule succeeded only in galvanising …

KABUL, Afghanistan — Canada has formally ended its combat mission in Afghanistan after years of being on the front lines of the fight against Taliban insurgents in the south. Canada is the sixth largest troop-contributing nation, behind the U.S. and European countries. While 2,850 Canadian combat troops are going home, 950 others have started streaming into the country to help train Afghan security …

IN THE TOILETS WITH THEIR TAILS BETWEEN THEIR LEGS Critics of the war in Afghanistan are fond of asking: "What would victory look like? How will we know when we’ve won?" In view of the latest events in that war-torn country, it’s fair to stand that question on its head and ask: What would defeat look like?    It looks like this: as …

  The Obama administration appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists — including a vessel with 50 Americans on board — bound for the besieged Gaza Strip. At a press conference on June 24, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Campaign …

ATHENS, Greece (Ma'an) — The US Boat to Gaza left the Athens Port at 4:50 p.m. on Friday, expecting to be stopped by Greek authorities in the country's coastal waters on its way to meet a French ship that had already left port.  Shortly after it sailed the US boat was intercepted by Greek officials, at the same time organizers …

  India is being forced to confront disturbing evidence that increasingly suggests a secret Hindu terror network may have been responsible for a wave of deadly attacks previously blamed on radical Muslims. Information contained in a confession given in court by a Hindu holy man, suggests that he and several others linked to a right-wing Hindu organisation, planned and carried …