Stuart Jeffries: Gillian Gibbons, the teacher jailed in Sudan for letting pupils name a teddy bear Mohammed, is going to China to pursue her pedagogical muse. She will even take her teddy bear

Aides to billionaire mayor of New York reported to be examining procedure for entering race

Huckabee loses lead just days before first caucuses? Obama admits attacks may have cost him votes

The ranks of the Grand Old Party of Abe Lincoln are divided as it goes into the Iowa caucus battle on Tuesday, with no agreement on what it stands for and no obvious contender to take on Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama

The Pentagon is working on a series of contingency plans to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of Islamist radicals and insisted today that the arsenal was safe in spite of the upheaval in the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

His ‘9/11 campaign’ seems to have ensured Rudy Giuliani’s position at the top of opinion polls for the most likely Republican candidate for Presidentship in the 2008 elections.