BEIJING - U.S. health officials say they will stop imports of five species of fish from China because of concerns the seafood is contaminated with potentially dangerous antibiotics. China has repeatedly defended the quality of its exports amid rising criticism of faulty or tainted products.
China’s food safety came under intense scrutiny earlier this year following […]

STATE DEPARTMENT - The United States Friday banned U.S. travel by Syrian and former Lebanese officials accused of activities undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon and its elected government. The action came in a proclamation by President Bush from Kennebunkport, Maine, where he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin Sunday.  
The proclamation by the President did not specify […]

CAPITOL HILL - Majority Democrats are vowing to go ahead with plans for a new legislative push to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq after Congress returns next month from a week-long break.
House and Senate Democratic leaders met with reporters as lawmakers began the July 4th Independence Day break.
The recess comes at the six-month point of […]

MIAMI - Critics of racial desegregation plans in U.S. schools have welcomed a Supreme Court decision Thursday blocking some school integration measures. In Miami, supporters of desegregation hope to draft new plans that will fit with the court’s ruling.
In a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court ruled that school officials in two cities could not use […]

MOSCOW - Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is in Moscow for discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin about a possible arms deal and expanded economic ties between the two countries.  
President Hugo Chavez met his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Thursday evening at an informal dinner at the Russian leader’s country home near Moscow.  But Russian news reports throughout […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush says there are hopeful signs of progress in Iraq as 30,000 additional U.S. troops have been battling al-Qaida terrorists. 
President Bush says reinforced U.S. troops in al-Anbar province have reduced sectarian violence there even as al-Qaida is fighting to regain a base of operations.  
“It is working to assassinate sheiks and intimidate […]

25 years of faith, hope, and love 
By Patrick Reilly
Special to ASSIST News Service  
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (ANS) – Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz, three members of the Israeli Defence Force, were remembered with special prayers on Monday, June 11th, by their families in Israel and by family and friends around the world who were praying […]

SEOUL - More than five years after North Korea expelled nuclear inspectors a team from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency is visiting the North’s main nuclear facility. The visit is a prelude to closing the facility. The nuclear diplomacy that led to the shutdown is also about to yield tangible benefits for the […]

CAPITOL HILL - A bipartisan congressional report says Iraq’s military and police forces are not capable of taking over responsibility for security, and U.S. forces continue to bear the burden of President Bush’s military surge.
The House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee examined the training of Iraq’s army and police, focusing on such issues as […]

CAPITOL HILL - A U.S. Senate panel has issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the Justice Department and the National Security Council for documents relating to a controversial wiretapping program.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, issued the subpoenas after his panel made repeated requests for the documents, […]

WASHINGTON - Afghanistan’s poppy harvest is growing rapidly and this year’s yield could exceed last year’s record crop. Top counter narcotics officials from the United States and Britain say Afghanistan’s growing trade in illegal drugs is firmly linked to the Taleban insurgency.
In the recently released World Drug Report, the United Nations says Afghanistan produced dramatically […]

WASHINGTON - In another step aimed at increasing the economic cost to Iran of its controversial nuclear enrichment program, a key congressional panel has approved legislation to impose sanctions on Iran’s energy sector.
The House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee approved the legislation, called the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007, by a vote of 37 to […]

WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency released hundreds of pages of documents Tuesday about past agency abuses that sparked outrage and investigations in the 1970s. The documents contain no startling new revelations. But, they paint a more detailed portrait of an agency under siege for some of its activities at home and abroad.
The documents, known […]

SEOUL - With United Nations nuclear inspectors arriving in Pyongyang, South Korea is ending its delay of a promised shipment of rice to impoverished North Korea. South Korean authorities say they are satisfied diplomacy to end the North’s nuclear weapons program is sufficiently back on track to start sending the food across the border.
South Korean […]

PENTAGON - A senior American officer involved in training Iraq’s new security forces is warning against putting too much responsibility on those forces too quickly, as pressure grows in the United States for the start of a withdrawal of U.S. troops. The officer spoke from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon Monday.
As coalition forces move […]

HANOI - When Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet met United States President George Bush in Washington last week, they announced new efforts to tackle the damage caused by Agent Orange. Although the countries agreed victims of Agent Orange need help, scientists are still arguing over how harmful the chemical defoliant really was.
Vietnam claims about three […]

HONG KONG - A new bridge across the Mekong River will make if possible for the first time in history to travel by road from China to Thailand, which should boost regional trade. In Japan, both exports and imports reached record levels in May.
China, Thailand and Laos agreed to build a bridge across the Mekong […]

WASHINGTON - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas meet Monday in the midst of political turmoil in the Palestinian territories. Mideast experts from around the world will be keeping a close watch on the discussions. 
Less than a week after Ehud Olmert met at the White House with President Bush, he is heading […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries LONDON, UK (ANS) – Five London-based Iraqi church leaders have denounced the “reprehensible failure” of the Iraqi government to protect Christians from persecution, journalist Simon Caldwell has reported in a story posted on the Catholic News Service website (www.catholicnews.com).Caldwell quoted a letter sent to British Prime Minister Tony Blair […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush is lobbying for an immigration reform bill in Congress that has already been defeated once by members of his own party. Opposition Democrats are pushing the president to spend more on benefits for military veterans.
Changing American immigration law is the president’s biggest legislative goal of the year. The major obstacle […]

Axes, clubs, guns-wielding mob leave 8 Christians injured 
By Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service in PakistanFAISALABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) – A Muslim mob in a village in the province Punjab of Pakistan attacked a Salvation Army Church on Sunday, June 17, in a bid to pressure the Christian residents to cancel an evangelistic meeting […]

PENTAGON - The second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq says the week-old offensive against insurgent groups in and around Baghdad could create conditions for the start of a U.S. withdrawal sometime between this fall and next spring.  Lieutenant General Ray Odierno spoke from Iraq to reporters at the Pentagon.
General Odierno says the additional forces President Bush […]

WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President George Bush and Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet met at the White House Friday to discuss human rights and commercial ties.
With flag-waving Vietnamese-Americans protesting outside the White House gate, President Bush welcomed President Triet to the Oval Office saying he is impressed by Vietnam’s growing economy.
Mr. Bush said America has […]

CAPITOL HILL - A group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers Thursday introduced legislation that would boost agricultural trade with Cuba and lift the U.S. travel ban to the communist-ruled island nation. 
The United States forbids its citizens from traveling to Cuba or doing business with that country, although Congress in 2000 did authorize limited food and […]