At least two dozen detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan have died at the hands of U.S. forces in confirmed or suspected cases of criminal homicide, military officials said on Wednesday.The Army Criminal Investigation Command looked into the deaths of 79 prisoners in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan dating back to 2002 in 68 separate investigations, according to figures released by the Army.The number of homicide deaths among detainees is far higher than figures previously acknowledged by the Pentagon

The Pentagon stood accused of sitting on a damaging report from its own auditors on a $108.4m (£56.6m) overcharge by Halliburton for its services in Iraq yesterday.In the most startling transaction, it charged the Pentagon $27.5m to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel to Iraq from Kuwait - 335 times the actual cost of the liquified petroleum gas, a charge the Pentagon auditors said was "illogical" -Guardian UK

Government employees may have falsified documents related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada, the Energy Department said Wednesday.The disclosure could jeopardize the project's ability to get a federal permit to operate the dump.The department said the questionable data involved computer modeling for water infiltration and climate at the Yucca site, which is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas

Fox News is producing a special on the Oklahoma City (OKC) bombing for airing around the time of the tenth anniversary of the bombing, April 19, 1995. Mr. Peter Russo, the producer of the Fox special contacted me on March 9, 2005 and spoke to me approximately 25 minutes.Mr. Russo told me he contacted me because one of the persons he interviewed for the special, retired Air Force General Benton Partin, had recommended me to Mr.Russo as an important source for the OKC bombing investigations -Patrick Briley/NewsWithViews

Pro-Syrian Hizbollah guerrillas will keep their weapons despite U.S. calls to disarm and Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, the group's chief said on Wednesday.The uncompromising stance on weapons for fighters of the Syrian and Iranian-backed Hizbollah, who helped force Israel to end its 22-year occupation of Lebanon in 2000, was set out by the group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah

Venezuelan National Lands Institute (INTI) president, Captain (ret.) Eliecer Otaiza defends the intervention of large colonial farms and says supposed owners have 60 days in which to defend themselves in court.During the first stage of land reform, Otaiza has gone for the high-profile El Charcote, Pinero and Borges farms -VHeadline.com VE

Barely eight days after he nominated John Bolton, a hotly anti-United Nations State Department official as US ambassador to the UN, the President's choice of World Bank president seemed virtually guaranteed to raise hackles in diplomatic circles, and among development professionals who believe Mr Wolfowitz, currently Deputy Secretary of Defence, is unqualified for the job -Independent UK

The U.S. has moved its military exercises with South Korea into a ``real war'' phase by sending the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk into the region, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said.The U.S. ``has always dispatched carrier flotilla to waters off a certain country before launching a war of aggression,'' the news agency said in commentary late yesterday from the capital, Pyongyang.The deployment shows the Bush administration's hostile policy ``has reached the phase of a real war.'' -Bloomberg

Encouraged by the positive outcomes of cooperation with India on dealing with the tsunami and the Nepal crisis, Washington today expressed its interest to work closely with New Delhi on addressing the deteriorating situation in Bangladesh.Given the deterioration in the security situation in Bangladesh, the officials added, there is a case for both countries to close ranks as India too has been concerned by the developments there -Indian Express IN

The United States may not have been able to throw a diplomatic spanner in the proposed Iran-India gas pipeline project, but the $4.5 billion deal has run into economic rough weather.U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday conveyed her government's concern to Indian officials over the proposed gas pipeline project, but India's External Affairs Minister K.Natwar Singh refused to shelve the project, saying gas was needed to meet the country's growing energy demand -New Kerala IN

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Wednesday agreed to pay $2 billion to end a class-action lawsuit by investors who lost money when telecommunications giant WorldCom went bankrupt in 2002.The bank's action came the day after a jury found former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers guilty of fraud in the world's largest accounting scandal -NewsDay

The U.S. House passed legislation late yesterday to delay removal of the feeding tube that is keeping alive a brain-damaged woman whose husband has been given permission by a state court to allow her to die.Earlier in the day, a Florida appeals court refused to block the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.The removal was scheduled for 1 p.m. tomorrow -Washington Post

President George W. Bush on Wednesday chose Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a lightning rod of controversy as an architect of the Iraq war, to become the new president of the World Bank.

If nuclear missiles were suddenly fired at the United States from North Korea, the U.S. is ready to shoot them down. That's the opinion of Major Gen. John Holly, head of the missile-shield program for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday it was a mistake for Hawaii to post a confidential report on its Web site, but the department will continue to communicate openly with state and local authorities about potential terror threats.

The White House is scrambling to salvage the president's $400m pledge to US allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the face of congressional efforts to deny funding for the "Solidarity Initiative."

The Pentagon is working to develop a suborbital space capsule within the next five years that would be launched from the United States and could deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within two hours, defense officials said.