BERLIN – German customs authorities said Wednesday they have arrested four men and broken up a smuggling ring that allegedly was supplying Iran with navigation equipment for military use. In coordinated searches, three of the navigation systems as well as company papers and other documents were confiscated from 10 buildings …

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council ignored recommendations for targeted sanctions and a tighter existing arms embargo in Somalia, despite a spike in violence and fears that Islamic fundamentalists have gained strength in the chaotic nation. The recommendations Wednesday had come from one of the council’s own committees, which …

TORONTO – A DNA test has confirmed what zoologists, hunters and aboriginal trackers in the far northern reaches of Canada have dreamed of for years: the first documented case of a grizzly-polar bear in the wild. Roger Kuptana, an Inuit tracker from the Northwest Territories, suspected the American hunter he …

NEW ORLEANS – Jane Anderson misses the old days — the days right after Hurricane Katrina when National Guardsmen with rifles roamed the street outside the New Orleans shop where she works. The days when there weren’t many people around and crime was down sharply. “I know it’s still pretty …

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syrian police detained the country’s leading rights lawyer and seven other rights activists Wednesday, as a government newspaper rebuked those who had signed a petition calling for an improvement in Syrian-Lebanese relations. Anwar al-Bunni was dragged out of his home by security forces, his family said. A …

MOSCOW – Authorities in the Russian capital on Thursday refused to sanction the nation’s first ever gay parade, saying that widespread public intolerance could trigger riots, but the parade organizers pledged to go ahead with the rally. The parade’s main organizer Nikolai Alexeyev said the city authorities’ refusal to allow …

RAMADI, Iraq – On the roof of a ruined hotel-turned-observation post nicknamed “the Ramadi Inn,” two U.S. snipers listen to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” on an iPod and watch a firefight through holes knocked out of a penthouse wall. Marines at another sandbagged outpost up the road are firing …

GENEVA – Polar bears and hippos are among more than 16,000 species of animals and plants threatened with global extinction, the World Conservation Union said Tuesday. According to the Swiss-based conservation group, known by its acronym IUCN, the number of species classified as being in serious danger of extinction rose …

WASHINGTON – Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs has a long list of alumni who have gone onto government service, and it looks like it’s about to give up one more of its protégés with the nomination of Chairman and CEO Henry M. Paulson Jr. to head the Treasury Department. The …

BAGHDAD – Editor’s note: U.S. Army Capt. Dan Sukman is serving a one-year deployment to Iraq. For previous entries and his bio, see the Soldier’s Diary archives. May 28, 2006 2300 Hours Today is Sunday, the last weekend of May, and what would be a four-day weekend back in the …