Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Osama bin Laden was “within the grasp” of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements, a hard-hitting US Senate report says.
The report, set for release Monday, is intended to help learn the lessons of the past as President Barack Obama prepares to announce [...]

LONDON (AFP) – The government’s chief legal advisor informed then British prime minister Tony Blair in 2002 that deposing Saddam Hussein would contravene international law, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Peter Goldsmith, the Attorney General at the time, wrote to Blair eight months before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, but the premier ignored the advice, [...]

Britain aims to set clear goals in international talks on Afghanistan next year to aid the withdrawal of British troops from the conflict, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and all major contributors to the coalition fighting in Afghanistan as well as regional neighbors will be invited to [...]

Update (at bottom): House Oversight committee to probe Secret Service
The two aspiring reality TV stars who gatecrashed a state dinner this week met President Barack Obama at the event, a White House photograph showed.
The US Secret Service meanwhile issued an unusual mea culpa for the security lapse Tuesday at the White House State Dinner in [...]

NEW YORK — US stocks dived Friday as investors confronted the fallout from Dubai’s debt problems that have rocked global markets.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 183.35 points (1.75 percent) to 10,281.05 at 1500 GMT.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite slid 44.40 points (2.04 percent) to 2,131.65 and the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 retreated 22.52 points [...]