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FRANKFURT — Switzerland has released millions of dollars in assets belonging to Asif Ali Zardari, a leading Pakistani politician who is expected to be named the country’s president next week, Swiss authorities said.

Mr. Zardari’s accounts were frozen in 1997 at the request of Pakistani authorities investigating allegations that Mr. Zardari had received kickbacks while he was a government official and his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was prime minister. In June, Pakistan’s attorney general notified the Swiss that he was no longer investigating Mr. Zardari, who leads one of the country’s largest political parties. The attorney general wrote that neither Mr. Zardari nor Ms. Bhutto had done anything illegal, and that the charges had been politically motivated, the Swiss prosecutor general, Daniel Zappelli, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. As a result, the Swiss dropped a money-laundering case against Mr. Zardari and released his assets. “For money laundering to be proven, you have to show it was the product of a crime, but we don’t have any evidence for a crime committed in Pakistan,” Mr. Zappelli said. The value of the assets is about $60 million, Read more »

Palestinian leader insists Palestinian refugees have right to return after talks with Lebanese counterpart.

BEIRUT - Palestinian refugees in Lebanon should not be permanently resettled in the country, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Thursday after talks in Beirut with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman.

“The Palestinians have the right of return and this is an issue we are discussing with the Israelis,” Abbas told a media conference after the meeting.

“We are against the resettlement of Palestinians in Lebanon,” he added.

An estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in 12 camps in Lebanon. According to the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), there are around 4.6 million Palestinian Read more »

The deal is worth $3bn, says the oil minister China’s state-owned oil firm CNPC has agreed a $3bn (£1.63bn) oil services contract with the government of Iraq. The two parties renegotiated a 1997 deal to pump oil from the Ahdab oilfield, the Iraqi oil minister said. Under the new deal, output from the oilfield will be 110,000 barrels per day, up from the 90,000 barrels forecast in the original deal. The deal is the first major oil contract with a foreign firm since the US-led war in Iraq, reports say. As security improves, Iraq - which has some of the biggest oil reserves in the Middle East - is trying to bring in foreign oil companies to boost crude output. It needs billions of dollars of investment after years of war and sanctions. Other foreign oil companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, are also negotiating

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Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr suspends activity of his 60,000-strong Mahdi Army for an indefinite period, a statement by the group says. “The Mahdi Army suspension will be valid indefinitely and anyone who does not follow this order will not be considered a member of this group,” Sadr said in the statement issued on Thursday. The cleric had earlier announced plans to transform most of the Mahdi Army into a social organization, while preserving an elite group to fight the US occupation, without harming Iraqi

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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Israel not to undermine peace talks with the Palestinians after a report found it had nearly doubled Jewish settlement construction.

On her seventh visit this year in a long-shot push for a peace deal by January, Rice said the two sides were “somewhat closer” in their talks despite deep public scepticism about the chances of ending the six-decade conflict.

Rice offered no further details, but said: “God willing, and with the goodwill of the parties and the tireless work of the parties, we have a good chance to succeed.”

At a joint news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Read more »

KABUL, Afghanistan: A United Nations human rights team has found “convincing evidence” that some 90 civilians — among them 60 children — were killed in air strikes on a village in western Afghanistan on Thursday night, a statement issued by the United Nations mission in Kabul said, making it almost certainly the deadliest case of civilian casualties caused by any United States military operation in Afghanistan since 2001.

The United Nations the team visited the scene and interviewed survivors and local officials and elders, getting a name, age and gender of each person reported killed. The team reported that 15 people had been injured Read more »

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s long-troubled ruling coalition collapsed Monday amid arguments over who should be president and whether and how to reinstate dozens of senior judges fired last year.

The disintegration of the coalition, anticipated for some time, does not necessarily mean the government will collapse — at least not immediately. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which has the most parliamentary seats, probably can cobble together an alliance.

Problems remain

Still, the coalition’s downfall bodes ill for government efforts to confront an economy in near-meltdown and an Islamic insurgency Read more »