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WASHINGTON: Presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama announced Friday that he and formal rival Hillary Clinton would campaign together on June 27 for the first time. Obama's campaign made the announcement in an e-mail message sent to her supporters. However, no details were offered, such as where this might happen, for how long, or whether it will be multiple events and days. Some Democrats are pushing for a joint Obama-Clinton ticket in the general election to unite the party.
-- Xinhua
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's parliament observed a moment of silence on Saturday to honor slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto in one of a series of remembrance gestures 55 years after her birth. Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on December 27, 2007 in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad. Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party has started a weeklong blood donation campaign and the government has renamed Islamabad international airport after Bhutto, who was born on June 21, 1953.
-- AFP
KATHMANDU: Nepal was thrown into political limbo on Saturday after the Maoists quit the interim government of the newly-republican nation and demanded the prime minister's resignation. Former Maoist rebels stormed out of the government late on Friday, accusing a rival party of clinging to power despite being defeated in landmark elections two months ago. Nepal abolished its monarchy three weeks ago, but the country's two most powerful parties-the Maoists and the prime minister's Nepali Congress party-have been unable to reach a deal on power-sharing.
-- AFP
TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday stressed it will not negotiate with world powers over its nuclear program if it is required to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment activities. "Suspending uranium enrichment has no logic behind it and it is not acceptable and the continuation of negotiation will not be based on suspension," Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters. His comments come a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki indicated Tehran is willing to hold talks over its nuclear program.
-- AFP
KABUL: Four soldiers of the US-led coalition forces were killed and two more were seriously wounded Saturday by a roadside bombing explosion while conducting operation in southern Afghan province of Kandahar, said a coalition statement. The identity and nationality of the soldiers will be released pending notification of their kin. Attacks on international troops are on the rise during the past weeks as Taliban militants continue to demonstrate their strength through suicide and roadside bombings which claimed at least 103 coalition troops so far in 2008.
-- Xinhua
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia: Oil powers and consumers haggled Saturday over how much to blame market speculators for the spectacular rise in crude prices ahead of a summit on the energy crisis, officials said. Saudi Arabia has organized a meeting of producers and consumers for Sunday at which Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to be a keynote speaker. While growing demand is highlighted along with the need for greater investment in refining capacity, some nations want to blame market funds that speculate on oil futures for the rise of oil to almost $140 a barrel, officials said.
-- AFP
HARARE: Zimbabwe's veteran leader Robert Mugabe said opposition claims of violence ahead of next week's presidential run-off election are aimed at tarring the crunch vote, state media reported Saturday. "They have been saying their supporters are being beaten up by our soldiers. They say this so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair. Which is a damn lie!" the Herald newspaper quoted the 84-year-old president as telling an election rally in Bulawayo city on Friday. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has said some 70 of its supporters have been killed in a campaign of intimidation ahead of Friday's vote.
-- AFP
MEXICO CITY: A police raid on a crammed Mexico City nightclub on Friday turned into a deadly stampede that killed 12 people, including nine youths and three police, officials said. Police entered the New Divine nightclub, where around 1,000 people had gathered to fete the end of the school year, to break up the illegal sale of alcohol to minors. "Unfortunately, the person in charge of the nightclub took the microphone and announced a police operation was underway," adding that his words "sparked a panic."
-- AFP
GUATEMALA CITY: Five people were buried alive Friday morning in a garbage center in Guatemala after tons of garbage slid due to days of heavy rains, local reports reaching here said. The accident occurred in a closed area where garbage collection is prohibited, an official said. Rescue workers have managed to recover the dead bodies after hours of efforts to remove the garbage, but the authorities have ordered the suspension of the rescue work amid dangers of a river overflow near the garbage center.
-- Xinhua
SALISBURY PLAIN, England: About 30,000 people gathered in the rain by the mysterious standing stones of England's Stonehenge Saturday to mark the Summer Solstice, as dawn broke on the longest day of the year. At exactly 4:58 a.m. , the hotch-potch of druids, hippies and the merely curious cheered as the first glimpse of sunrise was detected through the rain clouds. English Heritage, the conservation body that maintains 5,000-year-old site, said about 30,000 people attended this year-a five-year record.
-- AFP
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