DAYTON, OHIO - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain has chosen a relative unknown, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, as his vice presidential running mate.
McCain announced his selection Friday to a crowd of supporters at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention. He called her the “right partner” with strong principles, […]

WASHINGTON - The Commerce Department says U.S. economic growth in the April to June quarter showed a robust 3.3 percent annual rate of advance in gross domestic product. The surprising upward revision was well received by financial markets.  
The more than three percent growth rate was nearly double what most economists had been expecting. Wall […]

BEIRUT - Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is meeting with top Lebanese officials, on a two-day visit, expected to include discussions over the future of the large Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon, and the armed presence of different Palestinian factions on Lebanese soil. 
The red carpet was out, and an official honor guard stood at attention, […]

JERUSALEM - Israeli scientists say they have started an ambitious project to digitally scan and post the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls on the Internet.
The Israel Antiquities Authority Wednesday announced that all of the thousands of scroll fragments will be scanned using non-damaging, high-tech imaging, which will reveal previously illegible portions.
Authority officials say the goal of […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has called Russia’s actions in Georgia an unjustified assault, and has pledged to ensure that country’s territorial integrity.
The vice president made his comments while addressing a meeting of veterans in the western U.S. state of Arizona.
Earlier, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Russia to comply immediately with the […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. immigration agents have arrested nearly 600 people at a plant in the southern state of Mississippi in the single largest workplace enforcement raid in the nation’s history.
Officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say agents arrested illegal immigrants, including suspects from Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Brazil and […]

DENVER - Democrats have formally nominated Barack Obama as their presidential candidate. The Illinois senator is the first African-American to be nominated as president by a major U.S. political party.
In a remarkable show of party unity, Obama’s one-time opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton, asked delegates here at the convention to suspend a roll call vote […]

TBILISI - Georgians are reacting with a mixture of concern and fury at the Russia’s decision to recognize the independence of two separatist territories within Georgia. Senior Georgian officials are urging the West to view the Kremlin’s action as proof that Russian imperialism is again on the rise.
Georgia’s State Minister for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili says […]

WASHINGTON - Senior U.S. officials have disclosed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will pay a historic visit to Libya next month.
The disclosure Tuesday came just weeks after the U.S. and Libya signed an agreement to compensate American victims of Libyan-backed terrorist attacks during the 1980s.
Rice has said she looks forward to visiting Libya now […]

By Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) – Pakistan government banned the Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan on Monday in a bid to curb rising incidents of suicide bombings in the country.
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of assassinated leader of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto and co-chair of the Pakistan Peoples Party had […]

WASHINGTON - President Bush is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to Georgia and other countries in the region to underscore U.S. support in the wake of Russia’s intervention in Georgia. U.S. officials say Russia is still not in compliance with its Georgia cease-fire obligations.
The Bush administration is sending the vice president and an inter-agency team […]

DENVER - Thousands of Democrats are descending on Denver, Colorado, for Monday’s opening of the Democratic National Convention. This year’s convention will make history by nominating Senator Barack Obama as the party’s presidential nominee, the first time that an African-American has been chosen as a major party candidate. 
Obama appeared with Biden at a campaign rally […]

WASHINGTON - A U.S. Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid has arrived at the Georgian port of Batumi with supplies for people displaced by fighting between Russian and Georgian troops. 
The USS McFaul arrived Sunday at the Black Sea port, the first of several American ships expected to deliver aid in the coming days.
Also today, a spokesman […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA (ANS) – A Degar Christian was recently tortured and killed by Vietnamese security police.
According to a news release from the Montagnard Foundation, the murder of Y-Cung Nie occurred on April 14 after his involvement in a demonstration protesting the arrest of three Christians who had […]

WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President George Bush is again calling on opposition Democrats in Congress to expand offshore oil drilling. High energy prices are a big part of this year’s presidential campaign.
When lawmakers return to work next month, President Bush says they should allow for more offshore oil drilling. In his weekly radio address, he […]

WASHINGTON - Ukraine’s leader says the country’s sovereignty could be at risk if it does not become part of NATO.
President Victor Yushchenko tells Saturday’s edition of The Times newspaper of London that Russia’s military incursion into Georgia has put the peace and stability of Europe “under threat.”  He says an eastward expansion of NATO is the […]

WASHINGTON - Likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has chosen longtime Senator Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate.   
Joe Biden is chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has represented the small Eastern state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 36 years. The inclusion of the 65-year-old Biden on the ticket […]

WASHINGTON - The United States and Poland have signed an agreement to station elements of a U.S. missile defense shield on Polish soil.
The agreement between Washington and Warsaw allows the United States to build, maintain and operate a military facility for ten ground-based, long-range missile interceptors. The site in Poland, along with a radar in […]

WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President George Bush says Russia is not complying with a cease-fire deal to pull back troops in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The statement from the White House comes as Russian officials say their forces have completed their withdrawal under a French-mediated accord.
U.S. National Security Council Spokesman Gordon Johndroe says […]

Human Rights Group Launches Petition To Secure their Release  
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. (ANS) – A human rights group has learned that Yemeni authorities continue to detain Christians who convert from Islam to Christianity.
Yemen is located in the Middle East, bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, between […]

TBILISI - France’s ambassador to Tbilisi is being hailed as a hero for his role in rescuing two American children trapped behind enemy lines in a Russian-occupied region of Georgia. Diplomats and relief agencies are working to free many other foreigners stranded when Russian forces streamed across the border and captured large chunks of Georgian […]

WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President George Bush says the victims of Hurricane Katrina have not been forgotten, and the American Gulf Coast is coming back after one of the worst natural disasters in the nation’s history. Mr. Bush spoke on his 17th trip to the region since the storm hit almost three years ago. 
The president […]

BEIRUT - Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is in Iraq for trade talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. His trip comes one week after King Abdullah of Jordan became the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Wednesday became the second top Arab […]

HOUSTON - The price of oil has dropped around 20 percent in recent weeks, but remains more than double what it was just a couple of years ago. The high price has given oil companies the incentive to revisit old fields long ago abandoned as unprofitable. New technology has made it possible to extract more […]

TBLISI, GEORGIA - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has warned Russia that its military operations in the former Soviet republic of Georgia undermine its relations with the West. Miliband made the comments after talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters in Tblisi, British Foreign Secretary Miliband accused Moscow of “violating international law” […]