Afghanistan

On Monday evening, it was alleged that the News of the World had hacked the phone of Milly Dowler just days after the teenager went missing near her home in Walton on Thames in 2002. As Tuesday passed, it was clear that the public was both outraged and shocked by the allegations.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has publicly condemned the Rupert Murdoch owned News of the World tabloid for its alleged hacking of murdered Milly Dowler's voicemail.

As the Libyan conflict is dragging on, headlines indicating that Gaddafi is preparing to leave Libya are emerging once again. Could the Lion of Africa really be on his way out, or is this just part of a desperate tactic aiming at retaining public support at a time when both the rebels and Nato are heavily criticised.

A British serviceman has gone missing in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has revealed.Following the soldier's disappearance from his base in southern Afghanistan early this morning, a massive search has been launched, amid claims that he was killed in Taliban custody. It is understood that the search is being carried out both on the ground and from the air, as troops desperately try to find him.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday responded to criticism as he assured that that his army and police would be ready to take over from foreign forces as planned despite a brazen assault on one of Kabul's premier hotels that left 19 people dead, including all eight attackers.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has today issued an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi over crimes against humanity committed against opponents of his regime.

Pakistan has expelled a team of at least 18 military advisers and trainers sent to help with the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, as the fallout from the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden continues to rock relations between Islamabad and its western allies.

As the U.S. looks ahead to its phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, even more attention is being directed toward Pakistan, where Obama administration officials say al-Qaeda and its allies are still plotting attacks against the West.

Aiming to convince senators of the viability of the Barack Obama administration's Afghanistan policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday cited South Korea as a successful "investment" case. "You look at the decades of our investment in South Korea," she said, facing a barrage of questions in a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee aimed at clarifying Washington's policy and progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Obama has ordered 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan in the next 14 months with 10,000 to be withdrawn by the end of this year. The timetable settled on by the president after a vigorous internal review was faster than sought by some top military commanders but much slower than demanded by many domestic political critics.

Dozens of militants, many of them suspected al Qaeda members, have today escaped a Yemeni prison located in the south-eastern province of Hadramout, by using a tunnel they dug over the past months in what appeared to be a brazen, coordinated jailbreak, according to reports.

When the US and Nato invaded Afghanistan in 2001 two reasons were widely advanced. One, the Taliban needed to surrender Bin Laden, and two, the US could not let the Islamist movement treat women so barbarically.

US President Barack Obama is expected to use a prime-time TV address to unveil plans for an initial withdrawal of thousands of US troops from Afghanistan.

The number of forcibly displaced people around the world has reached a 15-year high, according to the UN high commission for refugees (UNHCR), with the vast majority languishing in poor countries ill-equipped to cater to their needs.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan said publicly for the first time on Saturday that the United States and the Nato-led coalition have been actively negotiating with the Taliban, an assertion that was yesterday confirmed by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

"We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes, as it constitutes one of one of the most serious threat to international peace and security", this UN resolution was adopted in 2005 and set international background in which the Sri Lankan civil war was fought.

The long-serving second-in-command of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been appointed its head following the death of Osama Bin Laden, the militant organisation said in a statement.

Prince Harry to return to Afghanistan

Syrian troops trying to quash three months of protests are committing "alleged breaches of the most fundamental rights", while 1,100 unarmed civilians have been killed in the crackdown says a UN report.

Pakistan's top spy agency has arrested five Pakistani informants who assisted the CIA ahead of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The coalition has placed the United Kingdom on a road to austerity. The vaccination debate is sensitive. Primarily the government's first priority should be to keep their people safe and healthy. With defence and health care cuts can they really justify spending extra on international aid? The government may be heading down a thoroughly noble path but is the timing all wrong?

The head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, has warned that the UK fleet will not be able to continue the current scale of operations around Libya beyond the summer unless ministers take tough decisions about what they want to prioritise.

Al Quaeda's second in command yesterday issued a eulogy for Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan on May 2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is tipped to become the terrorist organisation's next leader, had already been perceived by western powers to be Al Qaeda's real operational head for a long time.

Nato defence ministers are today meeting in Brussels to review the results of two months of air strikes in Libya, just as the alliance steps up its campaign.

As Yemen is facing rapid and unprecedented changes, the country that was a year ago accused of being a haven for terrorism is not the number one priority of the U.S and the West anymore. So what happened to all the Yemeni Al-Qaeda fighters that are supposed to be in hiding on the country's territory, have they fled to Libya?The slowness and reluctance of the International community to confront the fragile political situation in Yemen should make us question the efforts that were made to p...

Following the failure of the African Union Road Map proposal presented by South African leader Jacob Zuma to broker a ceasefire between Gaddafi and the rebels, NATO powers are upping their intervention in Libya in a bid to break the deadlock, which has seen the Libyan leader hold on to power defiantly despite weeks of air strikes and a rebel uprising.

Amnesty International has been fighting torture and illegal imprisonment from its beginning. Since 1962 the group has denounced countries throughout the world where people are being detained and imprisoned arbitrarily without a fair trial, thus facing torture or other forms of ill-treatment while many are held in conditions that are so poor that these amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights no-one may be subjected to arbitrary ...

The Ministry of Defence today released the latest casualty figures for British servicemen and women serving in Afghanistan.

After UN Resolution 1973 was passed, coalition leaders promised "better days ahead for Libya" and pledged to "continue to act to help protect the Libyan people from the brutality of Gaddafi's regime" as well as to " support and stand by them as they seek to take control of their own destiny."

Barack Obama had quite a journey last week, but he was not the only person making international headlines. Here's a quick reminder of what was a busy week in international politics.