International

JERUSALEM – In a speech seen as a test of Obama administration influence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday offered conditional support for the establishment of a Palestinian state but refused to bring a halt to expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank

The two American journalists jailed in North Korea were convicted Monday and sentenced each to 12 years in labor camps for a "grave crime" against the nation and illegally crossing into the communist country from China, according to the Associated Press.

Juan Pedro Panuco said he and other immigrant inmates at Folsom State Prison have heard that California is so cash-strapped, some of them could get sprung early and then deported.

CAIRO, Egypt – They rolled out the red carpet for President Barack Obama on Tuesday at Cairo University – sweaty workmen with measuring tape yelling over one another in Arabic about how to arrange burgundy runners down the main aisle of the conference hall – as Egypt's largest and oldest secular university made the final preparations for his arrival.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's choice to take charge of the war in Afghanistan on Tuesday called significant growth of the Afghan army and national police the key to his strategy, but the annual cost of building and maintaining the existing Afghan force is more than four times larger than the entire Afghan economy.

Israel Betancourt is an American of Mexican descent. He was born in the border town of Laredo, Texas, in 1977. And his birth was assisted by a midwife.

CAIRO, Egypt – When President Barack Obama steps to the podium Thursday in Cairo to propose a new American partnership with the Muslim world, Arabs across the region will be waiting to hear what he has to say about Israel – as much as what he has to say about Islam.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has a sweeping goal for his speech Thursday in Cairo, Egypt: to begin remaking the dynamic between the United States and Muslims abroad.

For a year and a half, Arthur Charles Carnes IV has fought deportation from Canada – arguing, even, that he was a refugee from the United States, according to authorities.

It's not exactly the romantic Italian countryside, but a tiny Palestinian sheep farm at Tubas, on the West Bank, has become the unlikely headquarters for an unusual culinary experiment.

GARMA, Iraq – Mohammed walked in disbelief through the rich green grass that carpets the farm behind his modest family home. For more than three years, he'd seen no green, no hanging branches in the orchards near his home in Garma, in Anbar province in western Iraq.

Thousands of Pakistani Americans in the Sacramento region have watched the unrest unfolding in their homeland in recent days with concern and uncertainty as to its outcome.

MOSCOW – The old diplomat sighed as he recalled his years in Afghanistan, and then leaned forward and said in a booming voice that no escalation of troops would bring lasting peace.

BEIJING – North Korea on Monday put its armed forces on standby, severed a military hotline with South Korea and warned that any attempt by the United States to shoot down a rocket launch would trigger an immediate war.

BEIJING — A fire Monday night heavily damaged a new high-rise that's part of one of Beijing's architectural wonders, the iconic headquarters of China Central Television.

WASHINGTON – A nasty legal fight complicates plans for an Armenian genocide museum, and it shows no sign of abating.

JERUSALEM – French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a European delegation Monday pleaded for Israel to call a temporary halt to its 10-day-old offensive in Gaza, but top Israeli leaders, with the explicit backing of President George W. Bush, made it clear that they aren't ready to end the fighting.

ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER – Israeli tanks and ground troops moved swiftly Sunday to seize large sections of Gaza, encircling its largest city and cutting the narrow strip of land in two in what military officials called a "real war" on the militant Islamic group Hamas.

JERUSALEM – The Israeli military extended its air campaign in the Gaza Strip on Monday, and the nation's defense minister warned that the country is in "war to the bitter end against Hamas" and allied militants, who control the Palestinian territory.

JERUSALEM – Israel on Sunday began preparing for a possible ground offensive into the Gaza Strip as its air force continued to pummel the Hamas-controlled region with dozens of new missile strikes in an operation that has killed nearly 300 Palestinians in two days.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan is moving some troops away from its border with Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said Friday, sparking renewed fears that last month's terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, could trigger a fourth war between the two countries, both of which are now armed with nuclear weapons.

WASHINGTON – Gulf War illness is a real medical condition that has affected at least 175,000 combat veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, according to a report released Monday.

WASHINGTON – A year after problems emerged in the construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, another State Department post being built largely by the same Kuwaiti-based company is engulfed by delays, recriminations and an inspector general's probe, according to U.S. officials.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents on Monday rejected an offer of talks from Kabul and threatened for the first time to strike a target in the West, suggesting many years of violent conflict to come.

WASHINGTON – An American Muslim subjected to several years of intense FBI scrutiny and questioning about links to terrorism has been held without charges, access to a lawyer or contact with his family for nearly three months by the security services of the United Arab Emirates.

BAGHDAD – The Iraqi parliament approved legislation Monday that allocates six seats in provinces to small ethnic and religious communities in the upcoming provincial elections, but Christians, Yazidis and Shabaks asked for the law to be overturned on the grounds that they remained underrepresented.

WASHINGTON – A CIA-led raid on a compound in eastern Syria killed an al-Qaida in Iraq commander who oversaw the smuggling into Iraq of foreign fighters whose attacks claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives, three U.S. officials said Monday.

BAGHDAD – If Iraq doesn't sign a new agreement governing American forces in Iraq, the United States will withdraw $6.3 billion in aid for construction, security forces and economic activity, and another $10 billion a year in foreign military sales.

DONGGUAN, China – So many industrial zones cram into this area of the Pearl River Delta region, nicknamed "factory to the world," that provincial leaders not long ago came up with a scheme to get rid of some less-desirable plants to free up space.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – More extremist attacks shook Pakistan on Monday on the heels of a devastating bomb attack on the capital's best-known hotel. Gunmen took the Afghan consul general hostage after killing his driver, and suicide bombers killed nine policemen at a checkpoint in the valley of Swat, northwest of the capital.

Jenny Jacques wants to tie a yellow ribbon around every tree in America.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistani troops opened fire Monday on U.S. forces who were trying to enter the country's lawless tribal area, local officials said. The report, if accurate, would mark a dangerous further deterioration in relations between the allies in the war on terrorism.

WASHINGTON – Iranian stonewalling has stalled a U.N. investigation into whether Iran conducted nuclear weapons research, according to a new U.N. nuclear watchdog report that for the first time raised the possibility that foreign experts may have assisted in Iranian nuclear experiments.

BAGHDAD – A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up Monday at a coming-home party for an Iraqi police sergeant detained by U.S. forces for almost a year, killing 22 people and wounding 33, a high-ranking official said.

NAIROBI, Kenya – President Robert Mugabe's 28-year grip on Zimbabwe loosened slightly Monday with a deal that makes his archrival, Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister, but there are major doubts that the complicated power-sharing arrangement will end the southern African nation's economic crisis.

BEIJING – A scandal over tainted infant formula spread Monday as authorities acknowledged that thousands of babies ingested milk powder laced with the chemical found in contaminated pet-food exports last year that caused scores of U.S. animals to die.

FRESNO – Central Valley gang enforcers are using a new weapon: deportation orders.

BAGHDAD – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday there would be no security agreement between the United States and Iraq without an unconditional timetable for withdrawal – a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which insists the timing for troop departure would be based on conditions on the ground.

BAQOUBA, Iraq – The 15-year-old girl had the chubby cheeks of a child who hadn't lost her baby fat when she was arrested Sunday by an alert policeman. Around her chest was a vest packed with explosives.

BEIJING – How much is an Olympic medal worth?

IGOETI, Georgia – Despite assurances that it would withdraw troops from Georgia starting Monday, the Russian military operated with impunity as its forces moved convoys in and out of the city of Gori and plowed through a police roadblock in this town some 25 miles northwest of Tbilisi, the capital.

BAGHDAD – On Monday, King Abdullah II of Jordan became the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime fell in 2003.

WASHINGTON – Although oil traders on Monday shrugged off Russia's widening invasion of neighboring Georgia, the conflict, if it spreads farther, could threaten nearly 1 million barrels per day of needed global crude supplies from the Caspian Sea, most of it bound for Europe.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally, on Monday received a direct violent threat from al-Qaida while his political opponents convened parliament to begin impeachment proceedings against him.

GORI, Georgia – Russia pressed its invasion of Georgia by land, sea and air for a third day Sunday, striking far beyond contested South Ossetia as the Kremlin brushed aside a cease-fire offer and disputed Georgia's claim to have pulled its forces out of the rebel enclave.

BAGHDAD – Ghania Jassim moved out of her Baghdad apartment in 2003 when her husband had to choose between paying the soaring rent after the U.S. led-invasion or feeding their five children and her.

WASHINGTON – World powers agreed Monday to toughen U.N. sanctions against Iran after Tehran failed to accept by the weekend deadline a proposal aimed at resolving the crisis over its nuclear program, the State Department said Monday.

MINATITLÁN, Mexico – Pungent smoke billows from aging petrochemical plants here. Foul-smelling bluish water gathers in pools outside the walls. Fading paint announces the creaky Lázaro Cárdenas refinery, a perfect metaphor for one of the world's biggest and most antiquated state oil companies.

Twice a week in Sacramento's Pocket area, a dozen preschoolers at Bergamo Montessori School make friends in Mandarin.