David E Sanger

• IMF reports cyber attack led to 'very major breach'

  The International Monetary Fund, still struggling to find a new leader after the arrest of its managing director last month in New York, was hit recently by what computer experts describe as a large and sophisticated cyber attack whose dimensions...

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Il dies

  Kim Jong-il, the reclusive dictator who kept North Korea at the edge of starvation and collapse, banished to gulags citizens deemed disloyal and turned the country into a nuclear weapons state, died Saturday morning, according to an announcement by the North's official news media on Monday. He was reported to be 69, and had been in ill health since...

• IMF reports cyber attack led to 'very major breach'

  The International Monetary Fund, still struggling to find a new leader after the arrest of its managing director last month in New York, was hit recently by what computer experts describe as a large and sophisticated cyber attack whose dimensions are still unknown.The fund, which manages financial crises around the world and is the repository of hi...

• US had braced for fights with Pakistanis in Osama raid

  President Obama had insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said on Monday.In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said ...

• After Osama, What next for Afghanistan?

  From the Taliban's hidden mud compounds to NATO's headquarters in Brussels and the Pentagon, combatants in a decade-long war are asking versions of the same question: How does Osama bin Laden's death change the struggle over who will control Afghanistan? The Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, is said to be in Pakistan. For the Taliba...

• US says it wants access to Osama's 3 widows

  US President Barack Obama's national security advisor Thomas E. Donilon demanded on Sunday that Pakistan let American investigators interview Osama bin Laden's three widows, adding new pressure in a relationship now fraught over how Bin Laden could have been hiding near Islamabad for years before he was killed by commandos last week.Both Mr. Donilo...

• Target in Libya is clear, intent is not

  All the deliberations over what military action to take against Col. Muammar el-Gaddafi of Libya have failed to answer the most fundamental question: Is it merely to protect the Libyan population from the government, or is it intended to fulfill President Obama's objective declared two weeks ago that Colonel Gaddafi "must leave"? "We are not going ...

• Workers strain to retake control after blast and fire at Japan plant

  A small crew of technicians braved radiation and fire through the day on Tuesday as they fought to prevent three nuclear reactors in northeastern Japan from melting down and stop storage ponds loaded with spent uranium fuel pods from bursting into flames.Tokyo Electric Power Company officials announced on Tuesday evening that they were preparing to...

• Japan radiation levels rise after explosion

  Japan's nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday after an explosion damaged the vessel containing the nuclear core at one reactor and a fire at another spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to statements from Japanese government and industry officials.In a brief address to the nation at 11 am Tokyo time, Pr...

• Another explosion at Fukushima nuclear power plant

  As the scale of Japan's nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months. The emergency flooding of two stricken reactors with seawater and the r...

• Iran reports a major setback at a nuclear power plant

  Iran told atomic inspectors this week that it had run into a serious problem at a newly completed nuclear reactor that was supposed to start feeding electricity into the national grid this month, raising questions about whether the trouble was sabotage, a startup problem, or possibly the beginning of the project's end.In a report on Friday, the Int...

• How bloggers led the way in Arab protests

  As protesters in Tahrir Square faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: "Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas." The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world -- a pan-Ara...

• Egypt officials seek to ease Mubarak out

  President Hosni Mubarak appeared increasingly isolated on Saturday, with protests entering their 12th day and the Obama administration and some members of the Egyptian military and civilian elite pursuing plans to nudge him from power.The country's newly named vice president, Omar Suleiman, and other top military leaders were discussing steps to li...

• Obama: 'Orderly transition in Egypt must begin now'

  US President Obama declared on Tuesday night that an "orderly transition" in Egypt "must begin now," but he stopped short of demanding that President Hosni Mubarak leave office immediately. Mr. Obama used his four-and-a-half minute speech from the Cross Hall of the White House to embrace the cause of the protestors in Egypt far more fully than he h...

• Israel tests on worm called crucial in Iran nuclear delay

  The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel's never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal.Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role -- as a ...