KABUL, Afghanistan - Reliance on foreign donations by war-torn Afghanistan hobbles a government that depends on aid for 90 percent of its public spending, a relief group says. The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella organization representing 95 aid groups offering assistance to Afghanistan, said in a statement Tuesday how the aid is spent affects the lives of Afghans and the viability of the central government in Kabul.The group said military spending far ... [full story]

OTTAWA - Canada's two largest federal political parties are virtually tied for support in a poll published Wednesday by the Ottawa Citizen.The Ipsos Reid survey of 1,000 adults March 18-19 found support for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives remained unchanged with 35 percent support.The Liberals, led by Stephane Dion, gained 2 percentage points since a poll conducted two weeks earlier and registered 33 percent support. However, that's within the poll's 3-percentage-point margin of error, Canwest ... [full story]

MIAMI -- Florida will be getting a jump on the rest of the nation in terms of looser restrictions on firearms in national parks.The state Legislature, with little debate, passed new rules relating to hunting laws for state parks and some federal wilderness areas that will go into effect July 1.The new rules will be in place by the time the federal government is expected to announce a new plan that would require National Parks ... [full story]

PHILADELPHIA -- Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Monday unveiled a plan to counter the growing housing crisis and help homeowners keep their homes."The solution I've proposed is a sensible way for everyone -- lenders, investors, mortgage companies and borrowers -- to share responsibility, keep families in their homes, and stabilize our communities and our economy," she said in Philadelphia.Clinton called for the extension of the Federal Housing Administration's ability to guarantee restructured mortgages ... [full story]

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Floodwaters were subsiding in southern Illinois Monday as residents worked on cleaning up the mess in their flooded homes.Evacuees forced out last week were allowed to return home Sunday but officials urged them to avoid contact with floodwaters due to the possibility of contamination, The Southern newspaper of Carbondale, Ill. reported.Fifteen roads remained closed Sunday in Jackson County.In Randolph County, farmland and rural areas were the only places flooding problems were still ... [full story]

TORONTO -- Toronto police are trying to determine how many people an unlicensed dentist from Kosovo may have treated and possibly injured, the Ottawa Citizen reported.In an interview with the newspaper, Gzim Bytyqi, a 50-year-old resident of Ottawa said he had graduated as the former Yugoslavia's youngest dentist ever when he was 23. He said he, his wife and two children arrived in Canada as refugees in 1999.He has written the Canadian dentistry eligibility exam ... [full story]

VICTORIA, British Columbia -- Cutting off a dog's tail deprives it of communication ability and makes it become more aggressive, Canadian researchers in British Columbia report.Biologist Tom Reimchen and graduate student Steve Leaver of the University of Victoria used a robotic dog with exchangeable regular and bobbed tails to study 492 dogs' reactions in the summer of 2006 in off-leash environments, The Times-Colonist, a newspaper in Victoria, reported.They discovered dogs will approach a dog with ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Michael Robinson, credited with transforming Washington's National Zoo into a hospitable place for both humans and animals, has died of pancreatic cancer at 79.A native of England, Robinson served as director of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park for 16 years, The Washington Post reported Monday.He maintained that a zoo should be a "biopark," a place where the public can learn about animals as well as view them."I believe passionately that zoos are probably ... [full story]

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The largest international peacekeeping force joining U.N. forces with African Union troops in Darfur faces several logistical hurdles, regional officials said.A joint AU/U.N force took the place of an African Union contingent Jan. 1 with 26,000 security officials slated to join its ranks. But only 9,000 of those are on duty and the rest won't make it until the end of the year, The New York Times said Monday.Sudan also placed limits ... [full story]

BASRA, Iraq -- Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Boulani survived an assassination attempt on his motorcade in Basra, security officials said Monday.The officials said Boulani's motorcade was attacked late Sunday by men attacking with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, reported KUNA, the Kuwaiti news agency.Boulani wasn't hurt in the attack but several cars of the motorcade were damaged. He was in Basra to assess security conditions in the city, where incidents of violence have risen in recent ... [full story]