Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan - used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's land shipments - in retaliation for the worst such incident since Islamabad uneasily allied itself with Washington following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The government is likely to have to axe an extra 100,000 government jobs over the next four years to meet its deficit-reduction goal, the Ernst & Young ITEM Club said on November 27.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe also described Syria's exiled opposition National Council as "the legitimate partner with which we want to work," the biggest international endorsement yet for the nascent opposition body.

In a televised statement on November 23, he said "modern weapons systems" could be deployed in Kaliningrad if Russia, the US and Nato failed to come to a deal.

Some 40 million Egyptian voters are called to cast their ballots on Monday in the first legislative elections since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak in February.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel hit back at the idea of creating eurobonds proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday, saying it "will not work" in pulling the eurozone out of current debt crisis.

China has said it will conduct "routine" naval exercises in the Pacific ocean, a week after US President Barack Obama went on a major diplomatic campaign to assert the United States as a Pacific power.

In a surprise move, vice parliamentary speaker Chung Ui-hwa invoked his power to put the controversial trade bill to a plenary vote after ruling Grand National Party lawmakers occupied the main parliamentary hall. A plenary session was originally scheduled for November 24.

Authorities say at least 22 people have been killed and more than 1,700 others wounded in demonstrations that have spread to cities across the country in what some analysts are calling Egypt's "second revolution."  

 The U.S. congressional "super- committee" announced on Monday that the 12-member panel had failed to reach a deal to slash 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars over the next decade.

Egypt's cabinet said on Monday it had resigned as clashes raged in Tahrir Square between police and protesters demanding democratic change in the country's biggest crisis since Hosni Mubarak's ouster.

 

A mood of gloom and resignation dominated as people went to the polls against a background of soaring unemployment, cuts in public spending and a debt crisis that has put Spain in the front line of the euro zone's fight for survival.

Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has been captured, Libyan officials say.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on November 19 that floods had receded in central Bangkok and the area is now safe from the worst deluge that hit the country over the past half a century.