Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has lost his parliamentary majority after 33 lawmakers abandoned his ruling Freedom People party, reports say.

The lawmakers say they now support Berlusconi's former ally, Gianfranco Fini, who had also split from the ruling party.

Three more US-led soldiers have been killed in southern Afghanistan, bringing the July death toll among foreign troops in the country up to 91.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement on Saturday that the troops were killed in a number of explosions on Friday.

The Islamic Republic could reconsider its economic ties with the European Union in response to EU's unilateral sanctions against Iran's nuclear work, a senior Iranian MP says.

“The European Union will receive an appropriate response [from Iran] should it put into practice [new] sanctions against the Iranian nation,” Head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi told IRNA Saturday.

A top Iranian oil official says sanctions imposed on Iran have made the nation more reliant on domestic producers, hence companies which abide by sanctions have 'harmed themselves.'

"European and American markets have compromised their financial interests for the past few years because of such policies" said Managing Director of Iran's National Petrochemical Company Abdolhossein Bayat.

In France, rights groups plan to file a complaint about police brutality, after a video surfaced showing officers using excessive force to evict African immigrants from a Paris suburb.

The footage shows police dragging away women with their babies as well as young children.

The United Nations has renewed its call for an international investigation of the Israeli deadly attack against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid convoy.

A UN diplomat said that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon repeated the call in his meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday.

At least five people have been killed and 39 others injured in two separate explosions in central and northeastern China, local news agencies say.

In the first incident, four people lost their lives and 19 others were injured after an explosion ripped through a tax office in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province late on Friday.

Pakistan's intelligence agency chief has cancelled a visit to the UK over British Premier David Cameron's allegation of Pakistan's relations with terrorists, reports say.

Head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha cancelled a planned trip to Britain in protest to "the irresponsible remarks" of Cameron while he was on a visit to India, Pakistani media reported on Friday.

A congressionally mandated defense panel in the US says the Pentagon should increase the number of people serving in the navy to deal with rising Asian powers.

The statement came in a report headed by former White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former Defense Secretary William Perry on Thursday, urging the expansion of US naval power in Asia from its current fleet of 282 ships to 346 ships, the Washington Times reported.

Leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia have called on Lebanon to avert the crisis concerning charges by a tribunal, which accuses Hezbollah of involvement in the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

Hariri, who was the Arab state's premier from 1992 to 1998, and again from 2000 until his resignation on October 20, 2004, was assassinated along with 21 others in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on February 14, 2005.