World News from Times Online

Wish you were here, says chairman of Iraqi tourist board

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

At the start of the year an Australian tourist board advertised “the best job in the world” promoting a tropical island: a task so simple that it merely required someone to live there for six months and write of the experience.

Soldiers Donald Payne and Aaron Cooper accused of killing Iraqi

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

A former soldier described yesterday watching two comrades kick and punch a handcuffed Iraqi prisoner minutes before he died at a British detention centre in Basra.

Britain to train 10,000 more Afghan troops to speed up withdrawal

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Britain is to help to train 10,000 extra Afghan soldiers to serve in Helmand to bring forward the date when British troops can be withdrawn from parts of the province and replaced by Afghanistan’s national army.

Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Malik Hasan 'tried to contact al-Qaeda'

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Evidence of a terrorist link to the Fort Hood massacre mounted yesterday with reports that US intelligence officials knew for months before the shooting that Major Nidal Malik Hasan had been trying to contact figures associated with al-Qaeda.

Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad to be executed by lethal injection

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Seven years after he and his teenage sidekick terrorised the Washington area with a three-week killing spree using a high-powered rifle, John Allen Muhammad — the “Beltway sniper” — is due to be executed tonight by lethal injection.

Angela Merkel marks day the Wall fell and she took tea in West

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Angela Merkel, a woman in no man’s land, waded through a cheering crowd yesterday to make the journey across Berlin’s former East-West border — and into her own past.

At least 130 die in El Salvador as Hurricane Ida hits Central America

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Floods and landslides left at least 130 people dead in El Salvador after the late-season Hurricane Ida ravaged parts of Central America.

Movement for Democratic Change MP Roy Bennett on trial for 'treason'

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

The trial on terrorism charges of Roy Bennett, a close aide of the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, began yesterday amid claims that the evidence against him was based solely on a confession of an associate made under torture.

Dalai Lama returns to Tawang monastery where he sought refuge in 1959

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Buddhist devotees young and old waited for a glimpse of the Dalai Lama at a polo ground near the remote Tawang monastery in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh yesterday. As many as 30,000 people, some of whom had camped out for days beforehand, heard the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader’s call for compassion and peace around the world.

Angela Merkel re-engages Germany as active player in European Union

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Germany is governed by hidden rituals. On November 11, St Martin’s Day, German omnivores always eat goose and red cabbage. The following day they start to organise their summer holidays.

Anwar al-Awlaki's online support for Fort Hood gunman Major Hasan

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico of Yemeni descent. He lives in Yemen, which is home to at least 300 al-Qaeda militants. According to his website he served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia

Google back on acquisition trail with $750m purchase of AdMod$

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Google yesterday bought the leading mobile advertising provider for $750 million ($£450 million) in a bid to extend its dominance of the internet advertising market into the mobile arena.

Life in the old, divided Berlin was grim — but it was fun

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

It is not only spies, spooks and Bohemians who look back on life before the fall of the Wall with nostalgia. For 40 years Berlin was the front line between East and West; the place where systems clashed, danger loomed and the ghosts of the past haunted the divided city.

Aleksei Dymovsky in YouTube plea for Putin to end police corruption

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:30 GMT

A Russian policeman has triggered a political storm by breaking a code of silence over corruption in the ranks, in videos posted on the internet.

Fear of flying forces Kim Jong Il to use fleet of private trains

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:07 GMT

Kim Jong Il, the enigmatic North Korean despot and pathologically nervous flyer, has created a magnificent fleet of railway trains to convey him safely between his Pyongyang palace and secret mountain lair.

David Miliband's trip to Berlin increases speculation about EU foreign minister's job

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:49:37 GMT

David Miliband gave his strongest signal yet that he is interested in quitting the Government to become the EU’s foreign minister when he took a last-minute flight to join EU leaders in Berlin as they held frantic behind-the-scenes talks on who should become the EU’s first president and foreign representative.

How Russians such as Alexander Litvinenko took on their government

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:29:00 GMT

In 1998 Alexander Litvinenko — then an agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB) — and four other masked FSB agents held a press conference to say that they had been ordered to carry out assassinations. Litvinenko was fired by Vladimir Putin, then head of the FSB, and fled to Britain. He died after the radioactive chemical polonium-210 was slipped into his tea in 2006.

American hikers charged with espionage by Iran

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:43:12 GMT

Three American hikers detained in Iran are to be charged with espionage, three months after they were arrested for crossing over the border from Iraq.

Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan regains consciousness

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:04:05 GMT

The army psychiatrist suspected of shooting dead 13 soldiers on a US army base in Texas has regained consciousness and is able to speak, a hospital official said today.

Thai government bans Thaksin Shinawatra interview with The Times

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:31:57 GMT

The Thai government has banned an interview in The Times with the ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and warned that its security agencies will take “appropriate actions” against any media organisations that report his remarks about the country’s royal family.

Nine people executed for summer’s ethnic riots in western China

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:05:00 GMT

Nine people have been executed for participating in violent ethnic riots in China’s mainly Muslim north west that left nearly 200 people dead.

Live: Berlin celebrates 20 years after the fall of the wall

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:57:30 GMT

20.38pm Any further fireworks will be behind closed doors over dinner - where some of Europe's most senior politicians are expected to discuss the candidates for the EU presidency and foreign spokesman jobs. The Times can reveal tonight that David Miliband has caught a last-minute flight to join the discussions in Berlin. It is the strongest signal yet that he is interested in quitting the Government to become the EU’s foreign minister.

Crowds gather to remember fall of Berlin Wall

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:40:20 GMT

Large crowds gathered along the route of the former Berlin Wall for celebrations to mark 20 years since its fall.

Cadbury rejects £9.8bn hostile bid from Kraft

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:06:41 GMT

Cadbury today rejected a £9.8 billion hostile bid from Kraft, the world's second largest food company, branding the offer as "unattractive" and "derisory".

FBI set to probe Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan's 9/11 links

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:31:02 GMT

The FBI is set to investigate possible links between the gunman who killed 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood and a radical preacher in contact with at least one of the September 11 hijackers.