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The scramble to airlift tens of thousands of foreign nationals and Afghan allies from Kabul entered a frantic new stage today - with military chiefs admitting they can only continue as long as the Taliban allows it. As desperate British and US citizens, and allies who helped Western forces during the two-decade intervention, try to flee reprisals, armed guards from the Islamist regime have surrounded the capital's airport and seized control of all access points. Underlining the abject humiliation of the West, the Taliban's political chief Mullah Baradar arrived in Kandahar province on Tuesday after 20 years of exile as...

"This is police harassment!"

Hundreds of Muslim extremists surrounded a church in central Egypt and threatened to kill the local priest, the Assyrian International News Agency reported. The extremists began targeting the church in a village 7 kilometres south of the city of Minya in March after renovation work began, threatening to demolish the church. AINA Friday cited eyewitnesses as saying that the Muslim mob, dressed in white robes and long beards, chanted: "We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us."

MUMBAI, India (AP) — Police commandoes surrounded the headquarters Thursday of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch, which gunmen had seized overnight during a series of coordinated attacks across this seaside city. Thousands of gawkers stood in the narrow alleyways near the white, five-story building, where heavy curtains hung behind windows broken by gunfire. Neighbors had tried to protect the house as armed gunmen seized it Wednesday night.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Security agents and paramilitary police in riot gear are surrounding a Harare hotel housing foreign journalists. A man answering the phone at the hotel says they are taking away some reporters. The man refused to give his name but said about 30 police entered the hotel Thursday and were preparing to take away four or five journalists. Foreign journalists have been in Zimbabwe to cover elections in which President Robert Mugabe's party lost control of parliament. He is apparently facing a runoff for the presidency. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information....

Solzhenitsyn accuses the West of plotting to surround and undermine Russia By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow (Filed: 29/04/2006) Alexander Solzhenitsyn has accused the United States of launching a military campaign to encircle Russia and turn it into a Nato chattel. The Nobel laureate also delivered his strongest endorsement yet of President Vladimir Putin, surprising Kremlin critics who argue that the country is growing more authoritarian. Replying in writing to questions from the weekly Moscow News, the 87-year-old former Soviet dissident said military action by the United States in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan underlined the menace to Russian sovereignty. "Though...

<p>MIAMI — Dozens of heavily armed police officers surrounded a hijacked mail truck after a 90-minute slow-speed chase through the city's streets Friday.</p> <p>The chase began after witnesses reported seeing an armed man jump into the truck, police said. Television station WFOR-TV reported that a female mail carrier was being held at gunpoint, and a television helicopter shot showed two guns in a mail bin on the passenger's seat.</p>

Amid the ruins of Jenin, the grisly evidence of a war crime- Phil Reeves in Jenin, 16 April 2002 excerpts from article A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed. Its troops have caused devastation in the centre of the Jenin refugee camp, reached yesterday by The Independent, where thousands of people are still living amid the ruins..... Building after building has been torn apart, their contents of cheap fake furnishings, mattresses, white plastic chairs spewed out into the road. Every other building bears the giant, charred, impact mark of...