The last eight years have been brutal on the U.S.-Turkey relationship. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 exposed a deep rift between the two countries, with Ankara opposing the war and Turkey's parliament refusing to pass a motion that would have allowed U.S. troops to use the country as a launching pad for attacking the Saddam regime. Things have been even more dismal on the public opinion front. In a 2007 Pew Research Center public opinion survey, only 9 percent of Turks surveyed held favorable views of the United States, meaning that Turkey was the country with the least favorable view of the United States among the 47 countries and territories surveyed. (If it's any consolation for the United States, other surveys found that Turks seem to be a grumpy lot, holding generally unfavorable views of many other countries.)

America's fall from grace was reflected in Turkish popular culture. A 2005 Turkish bestseller, Metal Firtina (Metal Storm), envisioned Turks and Americans engaging in all-out war, the story ending with a nuclear device detonating in Washington. Kurtlar Vadisi -- Irak (Valley of the Wolves -- Iraq), a crassly anti-American and anti-Semitic 2006 film that became one of Turkey's best-grossing movies ever, saw a team of Turkish agents battling evil Americans in northern Iraq and a devious doctor (played by Gary Busey) who runs an organ-harvesting operation that relies on Iraqi corpses.

Yet Turkish public opinion might now be turning a corner. Obama's election and visit seemed to bring out a healthy dose of goodwill and excitement in Turkey.

Thai authorities have declared a state of emergency across Bangkok and the surrounding areas. The announcement came after Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed to prosecute protesters who forced the cancellation of an Asian summit on Saturday.

The tactics of the pro-Thaksin activists mirror those of their royalist rivals last year: they too paralysed government activity by targeting key venues. The BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok says there is no question the pro-Thaksin protesters broke the law. But, our correspondent adds, the problem is that Mr Abhisit rode to power on the back of protests that were just as illegal, and the PM may look hypocritical if he only goes after the red-shirted protesters who embarrassed him.

Pre-summit street protests in the capital this week drew up to 100,000 people.

The Argentinian government is demanding a halt to construction of a controversial social "separation wall" intended to block off a well-heeled residential neighbourhood from a poor district on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, in an episode that is turning into a national scandal.

The mayor of wealthy San Isidro, Gustavo Posse, had originally agreed to raise the wall as a crime prevention measure, arguing that it would prevent thieves crossing the highway and entering San Isidro.

The erection of the Buenos Aires wall has followed similar moves in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where projects have been undertaken to seal off large areas of slums, triggering protests.

Trapped inside a tiny coastal strip no larger than 20 sq km, the last fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are almost out of time. Since the start of the year, the Sri Lankan military has stepped up its campaign. Outgunned, they have fallen back to an area designated a "no-fire zone", where civilians were told to gather to escape the fighting. In the past week, more than 500 rebel fighters were reported killed.

Alongside the LTTE fighters are tens of thousands of civilians, unwilling or unable to leave. The Sri Lankan government says they are being used as human shields, and independent humanitarian workers say there is no doubt that many who tried to escape have been shot by the Tigers. One UN worker described how a five-year-old boy was shot in the head as he tried to flee

The military says that, even when surrounded, many Tigers refused to surrender. Asked to explain how more than 500 Tigers had been killed in the most recent fighting, against an official military death toll of just 11, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman, said the rebels had been cut off and were unable to get fresh supplies: "They were pretty much out of ammunition, but they were determined to fight to the end. It was hand-to-hand fighting."

Thousands of people marched through Georgia's capital Saturday on the third day of peaceful protests demanding the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Despite a steady decline in the number of demonstrators each day, their leaders vowed to resume the daily protests with new vigor after a break for Palm Sunday, which Georgians and other Orthodox Christians celebrate Sunday.

Saakashvili, whose second term runs through 2013, has countered the protests by calling for talks with his opponents.

Monday's Twitter-organized student protest brought some 10,000 people to Chisinau's main square, who accused the government of rigging Sunday's vote. The protest turned violent on Tuesday, with some demonstrators throwing rocks and storming the Moldovan parliament.

Moldova's current president, Vladimir Voronin, has belittled the protests and accused neighboring Romania of organizing a coup. He even expelled Romania's ambassador on Wednesday. "When the flag of Romania was raised on state buildings, the attempts of the opposition to carry out a coup became clear," he said. "We will not allow this."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lined up behind Voronin on Thursday and described the protesters who ransacked the parliament as "pogrom-makers" bent on destroying the country.

Officials said the Security Council's five permanent members and Japan had agreed on the text of a presidential statement on the 5 April launch.

The statement is considered a weaker response than the resolution initially sought by Japan and the US. China and Russia had rejected that idea, calling on the international community to act with restraint.

The leader of Lebanon's Islamist Hezbollah movement has confirmed one of the group's members is among 49 men accused of planning attacks in Egypt.

Egypt announced on Wednesday that it was holding the group on suspicion of planning "hostile operations".

Hezbollah had told the men to collect intelligence from villages along the Egypt-Gaza border, tourist sites and the Suez Canal, prosecutors said. The group had received equipment from Hezbollah, and had also been tasked with spreading Shia ideology in the predominantly Sunni country, they said

Why do you not at least temporarily suspend uranium enrichment, thereby laying the groundwork for the commencement of serious negotiations?

Ahmadinejad: These discussions are outdated. The time for that is over. The 118 members of the Non-Aligned Movement support us unanimously, as do the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. If we eliminate duplication between the two groups, we have 125 countries that are on our side. If a few countries are opposed to us, you certainly cannot claim that this is the entire world.

The composition of the Security Council and the veto of its five permanent members are consequences of World War II, which ended 60 years ago. Must the victorious powers dominate mankind for evermore, and must they constitute the world government? The composition of the Security Council must be changed.

Is that what former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said to you when you met with him here in Tehran in February? Ahmadinejad: Yes, he said it, as well.

We now hope to see concrete steps. This is good for everyone, but it is especially beneficial to the United States because the American position in the world is not exactly a good one. No one places any trust in the words of the Americans.

During my more than three years in office, I have visited more than 60 countries, where I was received with great affection by both the people on the street and those in the government. We have the support of 118 countries in the Non-Aligned Movement

I am quite aware that a distinction must be drawn between the American government and the American people. We do not hold Americans accountable for the faulty decisions of the Bush administration. They want to live in peace, like we all do.

The new US president, Barack Obama, directed a video address to the Iranian nation three weeks ago, during the Iranian New Year festival. Did you watch the speech? Ahmadinejad: Yes. Great things are happening in the United States. I believe that the Americans are in the process of initiating important developments.

We support talks on the basis of fairness and respect. That has always been our position. We are waiting for Obama to announce his plans, so that we can analyze them.

Russia has signed a deal to buy Israeli unmanned spy planes to help the country improve its own drones

The news comes after reports that Moscow was unhappy with the performance of similar Russian aircraft during the conflict last year with Georgia. An industry source in Israel said Russian generals had been impressed with the Israeli drones used by Georgia in the conflict.

Russia wanted to study the technology of the drones in an effort to improve its own pilotless planes, which came under criticism during the Georgia conflict.

Thousands of Georgians have gathered outside parliament saying they will not disperse until the president resigns. Protesters, numbering up to 60,000, blamed President Mikhail Saakashvili for defeat against Russia in August's war and said he had stifled democracy.

Estimates of the crowd range between 50,000 and 60,000, news agencies reported. Organisers had expected up to 100,000, AFP news agency said.

Opposition leaders have appealed to the government not to use violence to break up mass protests. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the last mass protests in Tbilisi in November 2007.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has opened the country's first nuclear fuel production plant.

Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran was open to an offer of fresh talks with world powers if they were based on "justice" and "respect".

Mr Ahmadinejad also announced that Iran had tested two new types of centrifuge with higher capacities at a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Meanwhile, nuclear chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh says Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it is running at the plant to 7,000. In February, Iran said it had 6,000 centrifuges running.

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

Many of the intrusions were detected not by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said. Intelligence officials worry about cyber attackers taking control of electrical facilities, a nuclear power plant or financial networks via the Internet.

The US government has admitted the nation's power grid is vulnerable to cyber attack, following reports it has been infiltrated by foreign spies.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper reported that Chinese and Russian spies were behind this "pervasive" breach. It said software had been left behind that could shut down the electric grid.

"There is a pretty strong consensus in the security community that the SCADA equipment, a class of technology that is used to manage critical infrastructure, has not kept pace with the rest of the industry," said Dan Kaminsky, a cyber security analyst and director of penetration testing for IOActive.

Iran said it would review an offer of talks on its nuclear program with the United States and five other world powers, even as it prepared to declare new progress in its disputed atom activity on Thursday.

The United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain said on Wednesday they would ask European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana to invite Tehran to a meeting to find "a diplomatic solution to this critical issue." "We will review it and then decide about it," Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a senior adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Reuters.

Underlining Tehran's determination to press ahead with its nuclear program, Ahmadinejad was expected to announce later on Thursday in the central city of Isfahan that Iran has mastered the final stage of atom fuel production.

There's a quiet revolution underway at the CIA and its sister agencies. A new generation of analysts, determined to drag their Cold War–era colleagues into the world of Web 2.0 information-sharing, have created Intellipedia, a classified version of Wikipedia they say is transforming the way U.S. spy agencies handle top-secret information by fostering collaboration across Washington and around the world.

One of the biggest hurdles was convincing security-minded spies that the system would be safe from outsiders. To assuage them, Intellipedia was built into the existing secure and classified networks known as Intelink, which connects the 16 spy agencies in the U.S. as well as the U.S. military, the Department of State and other agencies with access to intelligence.

Last September, the Director of National Intelligence rolled out a social-networking site called A-Space, with linked video and photo programs. A-Space has some 8,619 accounts, all of them top secret, but insiders say it is troubled and slow to get off the ground; at one point it was suspended because particularly sensitive intelligence was misused. New efforts at tagging and instant-messaging have also been slow.