U.S President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that he wanted Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to stay in office during the rest of his presidency, brushing aside calls for the two to resign.

The United States on Wednesday accused Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah of Lebanon of trying to topple the Lebanese government and warned them to keep their "hands off."

The White House denied on Wednesday that Iraq was moving toward chaos as demonstrated in a classified military chart published by The New York Times the same day.

Switzerland has decided to impose a ban on arms exports to Lebanon in line with a UN Security Council resolution, Swiss Radio International (SRI) reported on Wednesday.

Cyprus Government Spokesman Christodoulos Pashiardis said Wednesday that proximity talks in Helsinki concerning Turkish obligations towards European Union (EU) and Cyprus has not yet be confirmed.

With the handover of control of the Cahora Bassa dam to Mozambique Tuesday, the governments of Mozambique and Portugal brought more than 30 years of negotiations to a close and guaranteed the energy independence of one of Africa's poorest countries.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's recent report on the formation of an international court to try those accused of assassinating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has met with harsh criticism from some politicians, local media reported on Wednesday.

The Sudanese government on Wednesday rejected the accusation that it had permitted militants of Central African Republic (CAR) rebels to launch attacks from the Sudanese soil.

An explosion were heard on Wednesday evening in the Lebanese capital of Beirut's neighborhood near a major police barracks, Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported.

A senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official warned on Wednesday that isolation of Iran will be detrimental to the interests of world economy, the official IRNA news agency reported.