Former world leaders George W. Bush and Tony Blair joined Nigeria's elite at a ceremony honoring the political and business establishment Sunday, but one honoree's absence highlighted the endemic corruption and other problems plaguing the oil-rich nation.

The father of IIT alumnus Vikram Buddhi, who was awarded a nearly five-year jail term by a US court for posting hate messages against former President George W Bush, on Saturday sharply reacted to the verdict saying the trial was unfair and a "total miscarriage of justice".

George W Bush and Tony Blair were orchestrating a witch-hunt against late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein that ended with Iraq war which "in my view was illegal", a former UN weapons inspector has said.

Former US President George W Bush on Saturday favoured a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat for India, saying it has "arrived" as a strong democratic country in the world.

Former US president George W Bush praised Asian economies Wednesday for leading the global economy out of its slump, while warning against a rise in trade protectionism.

The United States plans to shelve plans for a missile-defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The brother of an Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President George W Bush in a stunning act of protest that made him a hero around the Arab world says the journalist has been released from a Baghdad prison.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the television reporter jailed for throwing his shoes in disgust at former US president George W Bush, will be released on Tuesday, a day later than expected, his family said.

After declaring he would rather look forward, President Barack Obama is delving instead into the past to deal with lingering assertions of CIA mistreatment of terror suspects during the Bush administration.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge claims in a new book that he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counter-terrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said on Saturday.

The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrant-less wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported on Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.

The United States has offered to resume migration talks with Cuba almost six years after they were suspended, a State Department official told AFP.

The brutal treatment of terror detainees and prisoners by members of the military followed directly from the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques, according to a Senate report that is likely to add fuel to the debate over the United States' use of torture.

As the Obama Administration proposes to pump billions of dollars into Pakistan, US Congressmen have insisted that Islamabad must be made accountable in lieu of the massive aid.

Former President George W Bush, making his first public speech since leaving office in January, says he wants Barack Obama to succeed and that it's "essential" to support the new leader.

The Obama administration will endorse a UN declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalisation of homosexuality that then-President George W Bush had refused to sign, The Associated Press has learned.

Senate Democrats suggested Republicans should join their call for a nonpartisan "Truth Commission" to probe whether the Bush administration abused its power, or face partisan US congressional investigations.

Muntazer al-Zaidi won global fame when his footwear whizzed past Bush's head on December 14 as the then president was making a farewell visit to Iraq before leaving the White House.

Just days after Americans honoured the 200th anniversary of his birth, 65 historians ranked Abraham Lincoln as the best US president.

Pentagon documents released by rights groups on Thursday detailed the agency's involvement in "war on terrorism" excesses, fueling debate over possible probes into the administration of former President George W Bush.

The United States and China are set for new tensions under Barack Obama amid extra pressure caused by the economic crisis, but will likely work together to iron out their differences, analysts say.

US President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information - an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century.

Belying expectations of soaring phraseology, President Barack Obama's inaugural address was a resolute, robust and workmanlike repudiation of his predecessor's policies.

Stepping into history, Barack Hussein Obama grasped the reins of power as America's first black president on Tuesday, saying the nation must choose "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord" to overcome the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.