NATO members are preparing to meet in Portugal for what is being billed as one of the most crucial summits in the alliance's 61-year history.

House Democrats voted on November17 to make Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, their leader for the 112th Congress, overcoming objections from moderates who argued that she was partly responsible for the party's overwhelming defeat at the polls two weeks ago.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, vowing to do "whatever it takes," tried to rally Senate support on November 17 for a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, even as more Republicans voiced opposition to a vote before the new year.  

Iran said on November 17 that unidentified foreign planes violated its airspace six times as the country kicked off its biggest ever air defense drill but that the intruders were intercepted and forced back by Iranian jets.  

The UK is "ready to support Ireland" in achieving economic stability, if it asks for help, George Osborne has said.  

The Dominican Republic has detected its first case of cholera, following the outbreak of the disease in neighbouring Haiti last month.

As many as 65 people were killed and around 120 others injured when a 15-year-old four-story building collapsed in East Delhi in the evening of November 15, said officials and police.

The US Vice-President Joseph Biden has warned the US that failure to ratify a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia will "endanger our national security".

The death toll of a big fire that engulfed a high-rise building in downtown Shanghai had risen to 53 by 9:20 a.m. on November 16, local authorities said.

There have been violent protests in Haiti against UN peacekeepers, amid a continuing cholera epidemic that has killed more than 900 people.