Dozens killed, scores wounded in spate of Iraq attacks
As many as 38 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded Monday in multiple attacks across Iraq, including one in which a man detonated a suicide vest near a convoy of coalition vehicles in Mosul, killing up to 16. | 12/01/08 17:32:00 By - Laith Hammoudi
U.S. tamps down claims of Pakistan role in Mumbai attack
The Bush administration, anxious to defuse dangerous tensions after India charged that there was a Pakistani link to the Mumbai terrorist attack, said Monday that it had no indication of Pakistani government involvement. | 12/01/08 15:11:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Life gets worse for Haiti's hungry children
The slow road to death runs high above the scenic coastline, past the crumbled bridges and buried rivers. It traverses a jagged trail passing green slopes and red fertile dirt before arriving here: an isolated mountain village where little Haitian girls dream of eating rice and the doctor is a three-hour walk away. | 12/01/08 07:03:06 By - Jacqueline Charles
Will India-Pakistan tensions hurt fight against al Qaida?
Pakistan warned over the weekend that it will divert troops fighting the Taliban and al Qaida on its western border with Afghanistan to its eastern frontier with India if tensions continue to rise over the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Washington may be forced to mediate as Indian officials declared that their country was being put on a virtual war footing. | 11/30/08 18:35:52 By - Saed Shah
Iraq, with U.N. help, seeks to improve elections
There's big change coming to the ballot in Iraq's January provincial elections: This time, candidates names will appear on the ballot instead of lists of political parties. Iraq concealed the identities of candidates in the 2005 election as a safety measure. Security has improved significantly since then -- though elections can still be a dangerous for candidates and election workers. | 11/30/08 16:52:29 By - Adam Ashton
With economy souring, illegal immigrants going home
Malaquias Gaspar left his farm village in southern Mexico when the economy soured in the mid-1990s. He headed north illegally and found the proverbial better opportunity in South Florida, where he made a decent living by picking fruit and building homes. But the U.S. economic crisis has disrupted his life and the lives of countless other illegal immigrants who are now planning to leave or have already left. | 11/30/08 08:42:23 By - Alfonso Chardy
Iraq's religious leaders criticize security agreement
Influential religious leaders across Iraq are voicing reservations about a U.S.-Iraq security agreement that allows Americans to remain in the country for another three years. Their comments filtered out Saturday as Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki met with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, to plan for the treaty's implementation. | 11/29/08 15:51:00 By - Adam Ashton
Mumbai attacks inflame India-Pakistan tensions
India on Friday charged that militants with links to Pakistan were involved in the terrorist attack on major tourist sites in Mumbai, in which more than 160 civilians died. Pakistan denied the allegations. The rapidly rising tensions could scuttle a tentative peace process between the two nuclear-armed countries and even lead to a military confrontation, and some experts said they thought this might've been the aim of the terror operation. | 11/28/08 18:35:00 By - Saeed Shah
With Iraqi parliament approving pact, Maliki's stature grows
In a country where agreements are hard to reach, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki built a broad political coalition to muscle through a divisive U.S.-Iraq security pact that could set his place in his nation’s history as the man who ended the American occupation. | 11/27/08 18:10:37 By - Adam Ashton
Weird ending to Russian president's first Venezuela visit
A strange thing happened Thursday moments after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez boarded a Russian destroyer. Bodyguards for the two men scuffled at the head of the gangplank. It lasted less than a minute, and it didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the two leaders. But the tussle suggested the difficulties in establishing deep ties between the two nations. | 11/27/08 17:57:44 By - Tyler Bridges
Iraqi parliament approves pact to end U.S. occupation
A resounding majority of Iraqi parliament members on Thursday approved a security pact that calls for an end to the U.S. occupation by 2012, giving the measure a mandate of national unity that was considered critical for its long-term success. | 11/27/08 12:37:01 By - Adam Ashton
Iraqi parliament delays troop pact vote over unrelated issues
The security pact, which sets the end of 2011 for U.S. withdrawal, likely has enough pledged votes to pass, but the government is trying to come up with policy pledges that will persuade a bloc of Sunni Muslim lawmakers to vote for the pact. Sunni backing would demonstrate national support for the agreement. | 11/26/08 17:10:00 By - Adam Ashton
China calls Tibet youth group 'worse than bin Laden'
The wildly different views of the Tibetan Youth Congress underscore the chasm over Tibet. On the streets of China's large cities, ordinary citizens consider government charges against the Tibetan Youth Congress as obvious fact, and look upon those who question them as concealing a general bias toward China. For their part, Tibetans see the charges as weird and fanciful. | 11/26/08 15:26:00 By - Tim Johnson
Iraq's parliament puts off vote on U.S. troop accord
Iraq's parliament was expected to vote today on a U.S.-Iraq security pact that calls for the withdrawal of American forces within the next three years. But parliament put the vote off until Thursday as legislative leaders worked to find a compromise that would set a national referendum on the issue for next year. | 11/26/08 12:29:55 By - Adam Ashton
U.S. staying silent on its view of Iraq pact until after vote
U.S. officials disagree with the Iraqi interpretation of key elements of the Iraq-U.S. agreement that sets a deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq. But they've kept silent about those disagreements for fear of upsetting the likely approval Wednesday of the accord in the Iraqi parliament. | 11/26/08 08:36:27 By - Adam Ashton, Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef
Hamdan, bin Laden's driver, makes it back to Yemen
Salim Hamdan's journey from Guantanamo, where he'd been imprisoned seven years, took 18 hours from the time his plane took off until it's arrival in Sanaa, Yemen's capital. U.S. officials had told him he'd be returning to his homeland for the final month of his sentence three days earlier. ''He was very much in a state of disbelief,'' said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed defense lawyer. | 11/26/08 08:31:05 By - Carol Rosenberg
Candidate for top intelligence post withdraws name
John Brennan, a former senior U.S. intelligence official, withdrew from consideration for a top intelligence post in the new Obama administration amid protests from liberal groups linking him to the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" and secret transfers of terrorism suspects to nations that torture prisoners and political opponents. | 11/25/08 19:54:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
U.S. shrugs as Russian ships, president visit Venezuela
The Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great traveled two months from their home port near Murmansk, Russia, to reach the Caribbean off Venezuela for what are billed as joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela next week. The Russian president is due in Caracas today. But U.S. officials are unconcerned. | 11/25/08 19:15:00 By - Tyler Bridges
London's new look: outward, upward — and modern
London, Europe's largest city, is in the midst of a physical transformation greater than any it's seen since the post-World War II era. The museums, monuments, cathedrals, and palaces that have lured foreign tourists for centuries are still there, but new developments are changing London's character in significant and controversial ways. | 11/25/08 18:33:00 By - Julie Sell
Bin Laden's driver about to be released from Guantanamo
When Salim Hamdan would be released wasn't certain. 'The Yemeni news agency said he would be released this week, an assertion military officials confirmed. But as of late Monday he remained in custody. Hamdan's legal challenge of his imprisonment caused the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Bush administration's initial plan for war crimes tribunals. He was eventually convicted of aiding a terrorist organization. | 11/25/08 00:03:45 By - Carol Rosenberg
Result of Venezuela's elections: More political turmoil likely
Opponents of President Hugo Chavez captured enough political terrain in Sunday's state and local elections to slow but not stop his grand ambitions to yank Venezuela and Latin America to the left, analysts said on Monday. Chavez, however, remains the country's dominant political figure and is likely to seek a national plebiscite early next year that would let him run for an additional six-year presidential term. | 11/24/08 21:10:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Meet a living Buddha: Young, handsome, with an old soul
Give the magnetic personality and hunky good looks of a rock star to a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and the result might be Gyalwang Karmapa, the third-highest lama in the Tibetan religious firmament. The Karmapa, as he is known, is getting more than his share of attention these days. Some say he may become the leader of Tibetan Buddhists when the Dalai Lama dies. | 11/24/08 17:31:00 By - Tim Johnson
3 bombs kill at least 16 Iraqis in attacks in Baghdad
Three explosions killed at least 16 Iraqis on Monday, including 14 who were in a bus to a government ministry and an Iraqi soldier at a heavily guarded checkpoint leading to the U.S.-controlled International Zone. The checkpoint bombing appeared to be carried out by a mentally unstable woman wearing a suicide vest. | 11/24/08 16:01:57 By - Adam Ashton and Hussein Kadhim
Hugo Chavez allies score big wins in Venezuela elections
President Hugo Chavez's candidates won a majority of the governor's elections in Venezuela on Sunday, winning in 17 of the 22 states. But opposition won in five and metropolitan Caracas, expanding their control in some of the country's most populous areas. Chavez early this morning declared the results a mandate to continue on "the road of socialism." | 11/23/08 18:37:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Dalai Lama urges patience over sputtering China talks on Tibet
The Dalai Lama Sunday said he would not immediately break off talks with China over Tibet's future even though hundreds of his top followers want him to halt what they see as fruitless negotiations. His remarks kept alive the possibility that six-year-long talks between Beijing and his government-in-exile have not utterly broken down. | 11/23/08 14:55:00 By - Tim Johnson
Haitian children severely malnourished
With arms and legs so skinny they look like twigs, 2-year-old Davidson Pierre has to struggle just to sit. So he remains sprawled on his back and stares listlessly at the ceiling. He doesn't smile. He doesn't cry. | 11/23/08 08:13:28 By - Jacqueline Charles
Sunni sheiks air grievances, but will work with Shiite-led government
The meeting was billed as a routine press conference to show off a new government center in this town west of Baghdad — known to Iraqis for the infamous prison as well as for the deep distrust between the Shiite-led central government and the Sunni tribes that reside here. But tribal leaders had something they wanted to say, and they weren't going to follow the day's script. | 11/22/08 16:36:00 By - Adam Ashton
Chavez hopes for big victory in governors', mayors' races
Venezuelans elect mayors and governors Sunday in a key test of President Hugo Chavez's political strength. An overwhelming victory by Chavez's candidates would prompt him to continue pulling Venezuela to the left, analysts said. It would also embolden him to seek public approval early next year to overturn term limits that currently keep him from running for president again in 2012. | 11/22/08 16:18:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Hillary Clinton would bring star power to State Department
She's been a mother, a lawyer and a first lady, an aggrieved wife, a U.S. senator and a nearly victorious candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now Hillary Clinton appears set to take on a new role: secretary of state. | 11/21/08 19:52:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
Israel's newest bid to isolate Hamas pushes Gaza to crisis
Israel has pushed the Gaza Strip to the brink of a humanitarian crisis by cutting off the supply of most aid, choking off the flow of fuel for Gaza's only power plant and restricting the transfer of most supplies. Beyond that, Israel is barring most diplomats, aid workers and international journalists from going into Gaza — an unprecedented and sweeping ban that's entering its third week. | 11/21/08 14:39:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Sadr followers protest Iraqi-U.S. pact in huge rally
Tens of thousands of followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr packed a central Baghdad square Friday, where they protested a U.S.-Iraq security agreement and likened Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to fallen dictator Saddam Hussein. | 11/21/08 10:24:00 By - Adam Ashton
Contractors in Iraq could face charges in earlier incidents
Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday. | 11/20/08 20:06:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef
Venezuela's Chavez campaigns for allies in Sunday's elections
On President Hugo Chavez's home turf, some 10,000 people lustily cheered Tuesday night for Julio Cesar Reyes, whom Chavez has branded a "traitor" because he's vying with Chavez's older brother to be the next governor of the state of Barinas. | 11/20/08 17:14:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Almost Jules Verne: U.S. study envisions the future
A new study by the U.S. intelligence community sees the next 20 years as an era of declining U.S. power, an West-to-East shift in wealth, climate change and soaring population. "History tells us that rapid change brings many dangers," it said. The report also projected life-improving technological breakthroughs in energy and other areas. | 11/20/08 16:29:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Pirates along African coast send shipping costs soaring
When Somali pirates last weekend seized the Sirius Star, a Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million worth of oil, they jolted a global shipping industry that's long coped with threats on the high seas. Now, in the face of increasingly bold and frequent pirate attacks off the east coast of Africa, the industry is facing spiraling costs and calling for a more forceful and coordinated response from governments that have sent naval vessels to the region. | 11/20/08 16:38:00 By - Julie Sell
At Tibetan exiles forum, it's debate by day, party by night
Summoned by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, more than 550 Tibetan exiles from around the globe have descended on this Himalayan hill station this week to debate the future of their homeland, which many see at a crucial juncture. | 11/20/08 15:46:00 By - Tim Johnson
Judge orders release of 5 Guantanamo detainees
A federal judge ordered the speedy release Thursday of five Algerian men held for nearly seven years in Guantanamo Bay prison. One of those ordered released is Lakhdar Boumediene, whose appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court became the underpinning of a 5-4 decision that gave Guantanamo prisoners the right to challenge their detention in court. | 11/20/08 13:46:00 By - Marisa Taylor
More skeptical Congress awaits U.S. trade pacts
The tectonic plates of American trade politics had already shifted slightly when President George W. Bush took a last stab at his economic legacy and appealed to Congress to approve the pending trade agreement with Colombia. | 11/20/08 10:45:15 By - Jane Bussey
Why the U.S. blinked on its troop agreement with Iraq
The Pentagon has welcomed a new accord on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. But privately, senior officials are criticizing President Bush for giving Iraq more control over U.S. military operations than had ever been contemplated. They blame U.S. negotiators for not understanding how upcoming elections would make Iraqi officials unwilling to compromise. | 11/19/08 19:43:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef
U.N.: Bombed Syrian facility had nuclear reactor features
A Syrian facility that Israel bombed last year had similarities to a nuclear reactor and chemically processed uranium particles were found at the site, but a final determination can't be made until Syria provides "the necessary transparency," a new U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency report out Wednesday says. | 11/19/08 18:38:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Iraqis doubt security agreement will end U.S. presence
Iraqi and American leaders say that a new security pact will have all U.S. forces and military contractors out of Iraq by 2012, but 14th Ramadan Street is skeptical. | 11/19/08 16:21:00 By - Adam Ashton
As stocks and oil prices fall, Russians worry about the ruble
The value of the ruble is crucial for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who's built much of his reputation on returning financial stability to the nation during his eight years as president. Now the price of oil has fallen to $55 a barrel from a high of $147 this summer and stocks have lost 70 percent of their value, and there are fears the ruble could slide as well. | 11/19/08 17:12:00 By - Tom Lasseter
Under Iraq troop pact, U.S. can't leave any forces behind
The status of forces of agreement between the United States and Iraq goes further than most people in the United States realize. It contains no provisions for the U.S. to leave behind a residual force recently mentioned by Barack Obama or the trainers that have long been part of the withdrawal discussions in the United States. | 11/18/08 18:30:00 By - Leila Fadel
Kenyan Islamist recruits say they did it for the money
Three Kenyan men who briefly fought for al Shabaab, the Somali insurgent group that claims ties to al Qaida, said that they were driven by the promise of money, not jihad. | 11/18/08 16:36:00 By - Shashank Bengali
Islamists poised to seize Somalia again in setback to U.S.
A radical Islamist group that U.S. officials say is tied to al Qaida has seized much of southern Somalia and is poised to take the capital, Mogadishu, as the country's internationally backed government nears collapse. It's the very scenario the Bush administration hoped to avoid two years ago when it backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia. | 11/18/08 16:37:00 By - Shashank Bengali
Maliki on Iraq TV calls for passage of troop pact with U.S.
Maliki's nationally televised address marked his first clear, public endorsement of the treaty after nine months of what he called "difficult and complicated" negotiations with U.S. officials. In May, Maliki declared that the negotiations were at an impasse, and he'd remained lukewarm this fall, neither endorsing nor rejecting the agreement. | 11/18/08 16:38:00 By - Adam Ashton
Haiti's lax regulation yields unsafe buildings
The rusty trucks groan as they climb the rugged mountain one after another, puffing toward a loading station to be filled with tons of sand scraped off the ridge. In this dirt-poor nation, the construction process often begins at this rock pit midway up a bleached mountain outside Port-au-Prince where sand entrepreneurs load up, then fan out across the capital in search of buyers. | 11/18/08 12:22:22 By - Jacqueline Charles
Cuba won't let our kids leave, medical workers say
Inside her bedroom on Cuba's Isle of Youth, 7-year-old Daviana Gonzalez prays to be reunited with her mother after more than five years, relatives say. In Camaguy, Marta Daniela Batista, another little girl separated from her parents, is said to suffer from mental health problems. The girls are children of Cuban medical professionals living in Miami who deserted their posts in various nations where the Cuban government sent them to help spread ideology and earn income for their cash-starved homeland. | 11/18/08 12:18:42 By - Frances Robels and Casey Woods
Did U.S. push detention of American without charges?
The case of Naji Hamdan, coupled with FBI interrogations of an American citizen secretly detained without charges in East Africa, raises the question of whether the Bush administration has asked other nations to hold Americans suspected of terrorism links whom U.S. officials lack the evidence to charge. That allegation is central to a lawsuit to be filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington. | 11/17/08 20:22:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Company that bungled Baghdad embassy repeats in Gabon
A year after problems emerged in the construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, another State Department post being built largely by the same Kuwaiti-based company is engulfed by delays, recriminations, and an Inspector General's probe. The embassy building, in the central African nation of Gabon, was supposed to be finished by April 2009. Instead, it's only 7 percent complete. | 11/17/08 19:01:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
U.S.-Afghan rift builds around Karzai's overture to Taliban
Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents rejected an offer of talks from Kabul Monday and threatened for the first time to strike a target in the West, suggesting many years of violent conflict to come. | 11/17/08 18:31:00 By - Saeed Shah
Iran softens resistance to U.S.-Iraq troop pact
Iran on Monday softened its resistance to a pact that calls for withdrawing American forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, a shift that could make it easier for Iraq's ruling Shiite Muslim government to secure parliamentary approval. U.S. officials said they doubted that Tehran had altered its stance, however. | 11/17/08 16:21:00 By - Adam Ashton
Terror plot: Yemen makes movie to fight jihad
Deep in Yemen's restive desert, terrorists target a family of European tourists. While the country mourns the deadly attack, an elite government force storms the killers' mountain hideout and brings them down in a hail of artillery. | 11/17/08 16:09:00 By - Shashank Bengali
China's coal fires belch fumes, worsening global warming
China has the worst underground coal fires of any country on Earth. The fires destroy as much as 20 million tons of coal annually, nearly the equivalent of Germany's entire annual production. The costs go beyond the waste of a valuable fuel, however. Scientists blame uncontrolled coal fires as a significant source of greenhouse gases, which lead to global warming. | 11/17/08 10:00:00 By - Tim Johnson
Iraqi cabinet approves accord setting U.S. troop withdrawal
Iraq's cabinet on Sunday approved an agreement with the United States that sets a timetable for the nearly complete withdrawal of American forces within three years — a date Iraqi officials said cannot be extended. It also lifts the immunity that U.S. soldiers and contractors have had from Iraqi prosecution. The agreement faces an uncertain future in the Iraqi parliament. | 11/16/08 14:47:00 By - Adam Ashton and Leila Fadel
Iraq cabinet approves troop agreement with U.S.
Iraq's cabinet today approved a security pact that calls for Americans to withdraw from the country within three years, setting up a final vote on the agreement in Iraq’s parliament. The agreement also limits Americans' ability to conduct raids without Iraqi permission and requires them to withdraw from Iraq's cities by the middle of next year. | 11/16/08 09:40:02 By - Adam Ashton
Some see opportunity in China's coalfield fires
The burning Shuixi Gou coalfield in far western China is terrible for the environment, belching smoke and noxious gases. Some experts look at the fire, however, and see hope for progress against global warming. | 11/16/08 06:00:00 By - Tim Johnson
Why hasn't the U.S. gone after Mullah Omar in Pakistan?
For seven years, the Bush administration has pursued al Qaida but done almost nothing to hunt down the Afghan Taliban leadership in its sanctuaries in Pakistan, and that's left Mullah Mohammad Omar and his deputies free to direct an escalating war against the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The administration's decision, U.S. and NATO officials said, has allowed the Taliban to regroup, rearm and recruit. | 11/16/08 06:00:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Russia hopeful Obama will improve relations
WASHINGTON — Russian President Dmitri Medvedev put the onus on President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday to fix what Medvedev called a "crisis of confidence" in U.S.-Russian relations, saying Moscow would wait to see how Obama proceeds with a U.S. missile defense system before deciding whether to retaliate. | 11/15/08 18:55:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
World leaders agree on broad principles to calm economic waters
WASHINGTON — World leaders, who gathered here to tackle the ongoing global financial crisis, agreed to a broad range of solutions Saturday but left the details to be worked out until the spring. | 11/15/08 19:26:00 By - Jack Chang
Overwhelming grief as Haitians bury victims of school collapse
Joceline Jean-Baptiste stared at the smiling photo of her daughter sitting among the yellow and orange carnations on top of the salmon-colored casket on Friday and initially refused to give in to the overwhelming sense of loss. Then the gut-wrenching pain of a mother having to bury her child broke through. | 11/14/08 17:01:12 By - Jacqueline Charles
Maliki tells Bush he now backs new U.S. troop deal
The aide said Maliki had concluded that the Iraqi government can't wring any more concessions from the United States and told other officials that in a meeting last week. Maliki informed Bush in the last 24 hours that he's "satisfied" with what Iraqi officials now are calling the "withdrawal agreement." | 11/14/08 12:49:23 By - Leila Fadel
China trying to force 6-months pregnant woman to abort
Chinese officials don't want the Muslim Uighur to have a third child and are trying to compel her to have an abortion. A nurse tending to the woman at the maternity ward of a hospital in Yining, near China’s border with Kazakhstan, said physicians had delayed performing the abortion because of international queries about her case. | 11/14/08 08:40:29 By - Tim Johnson
World leaders, anxious over economy, to ponder solutions
The leaders of 20 of the world's largest economies will gather Friday and Saturday in Washington to search for a way out of the biggest global economic meltdown in decades. | 11/13/08 17:43:00 By - Jack Chang
China's ethnic Mongolians hang on to identity by a thread
Over the last six decades, China has kept an open-door policy on migration to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and now only one out of five people in the region abutting Russia and Mongolia are ethnic Mongolian. Activists say the influx has overwhelmed them and imperiled their culture. | 11/13/08 16:36:00 By - Tim Johnson
Tumbling soybean prices worry Brazilian farmers
Settlers founded the town of Primavera do Leste and rode a soybean boom that's turned Brazil into a leading breadbasket to the world. However, soybean prices have cratered in the past three months. | 11/13/08 15:52:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Obama's biggest Guantanamo dilemma may lie in Yemen
Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he faces a major obstacle: Yemen. The largest group of prisoners still being held at Guantanamo are Yemenis. For them to go home, the Bush administration wants the Yemeni government to agree to keep them in jail. The Yemeni government has refused. Will Obama insist on the same? | 11/13/08 13:39:00 By - Shashank Bengali
Some detained Yemenis guilty, some aren't, attorneys say
Attorneys for dozens of Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay say that the prisoners range from "high-value" terrorism suspects to people who were mistakenly arrested, and they include a number who apparently were jailed because they're related to other suspects. | 11/13/08 13:38:00 By - Shashank Bengali
American aid worker gunned down in Pakistan ambush
An American aid worker overseeing a high-profile U.S. development program for Pakistan's tribal area was gunned down Wednesday in the northwest city of Peshawar in what's thought to be the first targeted killing of a Westerner in the current campaign of violence by Islamic extremists. | 11/12/08 20:01:49 By - Saeed Shah
Iraqi soldier shoots and kills U.S. troops
An Iraqi soldier shot and killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded at least six others Wednesday in Mosul, the American military said. As the shootings occurred in northern Iraq, violence continued in Baghdad, with at least 25 people killed in bombings across the capital. | 11/12/08 17:18:00 By - Leila Fadel
Opening of bridge reconnects Shiite, Sunni Iraqis
The Shiites approached the Aimma bridge from Baghdad's Shiite district of Kadhimiyah, and the Sunnis came from the Sunni side of Adhamiyah on Tuesday. When they met in the middle, they hugged and then cried over the waters of the Tigris River. | 11/11/08 19:07:00 By - Laith Hammoudi
Obama's victory stirs Europe to confront race issue
For months before Barack Obama's election last week, his popularity ratings in Europe soared to levels never matched in America. Now that Obama is headed to the Oval Office as the first African-American president, his victory is prompting Europeans to confront some uncomfortable questions about race within their own countries. | 11/11/08 17:55:00 By - Julie Sell
Brazil demanding bigger role in setting the world's agenda
Brazil has surpassed the U.S. as the biggest producer of iron ore and coffee. It's become the world's biggest exporter of beef, poultry, biofuels and orange juice concentrate. It has $200 billion in reserves. When the G-20 meets to consider the world's financial crisis in Washington this weekend, Brazil wants a bigger role. | 11/11/08 17:32:00 By - Tyler Bridges
What can the U.S. learn from France's terror fight?
As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to revamp American counter-terrorism programs and close down the Bush administration's controversial Guantanamo Bay military tribunals, the incoming Democratic leader could find a few building blocks in what France calls its "fight against terror." | 11/11/08 16:57:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Kurdish expansion squeezes northern Iraq's minorities
Murad Kashtu al Asi is a member of the ancient Yazidi sect, most of whom consider themselves Kurdish. In the complex and often violent landscape of Iraq, the community, estimated at a few hundred thousand, is at the center of a tug of war over land between mostly Arab Iraq to the south and mostly Kurdish Iraq to the north. | 11/11/08 16:08:00 By - Leila Fadel
Church publishes recent photo of Fidel Castro
A photo of Fidel Castro was published Oct. 20 in Havana, onn the website of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. | 11/11/08 14:26:47 By - Renato Perez Pizarro
Baghdad street sweepers clear bodies after bombings
Three or more explosions Monday ripped through a busy shopping district in northern Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighborhood, at killing at least 28 people and wounding at least 68. | 11/10/08 19:33:06 By - Hussein Kadhim and Leila Fadel
Europe expects to flex its muscle at financial summit
After playing a key role in responding to the global banking crisis, European leaders head to Washington for a big global financial summit later this week with newfound confidence in their dealings with the United States, a vague set of principles and only a few specific reforms in their briefcases. | 11/10/08 18:58:49 By - Julie Sell
In Haiti, workers give up on finding life in school collapse
Rescue workers who spent the day chipping away at the rubble of a collapsed school building in Haiti said Monday there is no chance of finding any more survivors. The death toll stood at 90. | 11/10/08 15:12:10 By - Jacqueline Charles
Iraqi refugees get help in adapting to U.S. life
It didn't take long for parishioners at St. Matthew Church in Ceres, Calif., to launch a plan to help a wave of Iraqi refugees who began settling in Stanislaus County last summer. Their church is a natural magnet for Iraqi Christians because many of its members are Iraqi immigrants themselves. | 11/10/08 07:35:47 By - Adam Ashton
Bush Middle East efforts end with little progress
Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is wrapping up the Bush administration's yearlong attempt to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace with little to show for her investment. The diplomatic initiative has helped to dispel the mutual distrust that chilled peace talks for seven years. But there have been few tangible successes. | 11/09/08 14:07:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
World impact: Economic crisis hits Brazilian consumers
For the past two years, rainy Saturdays meant a steady stream of customers to a Renault auto dealership in this seaside city as Rio residents eschewed the beach to open up their wallets during the good economic times. With the financial implosion that began in the United States spreading to Brazil, a three-year economic boom has come to an end. | 11/09/08 14:07:00 By - Tyler Bridges
No more victims found in collapsed Haiti school
After spending all night searching for more survivors in the rubble of a collapsed school and Sunday morning chasing false rumors of trapped victims calling out to relatives, emergency workers in Petionville, Haiti, have moved into a recovery mode. | 11/09/08 09:07:45 By - Jacqueline Charles
Changing climate may push more countries to war
A warmer planet could find itself more often at war. The Earth’s fast-changing climate has a range of serious thinkers — from military brass to geographers to diplomats — predicting a spate of armed conflicts driven by the weather. | 11/09/08 08:46:21 By - Scott Canon
Small miracle amid Haiti rubble: 2-year-old saved
More than 24 hours after a school collapsed in Petionville, a suburb of Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, emergency workers continued digging through the rubble in a frenzied search to find survivors. At least one child, a 2-year-old boy, was found alive, buried among the concrete slabs on Saturday. | 11/08/08 18:45:19 By - Jacqueline Charles
Paloma's fury batters Cayman Islands, aims at Cuba
Hours after battering the Cayman Islands, Hurricane Paloma, now a dangerous Category 4 storm, began barreling down on Cuba late on Saturday afternoon. Bands of rain began drenching Cuba's south-central coast about 1 p.m., forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said. Residents were told to expect ''potentially catastrophic'' storm surges of up to 25 feet in the coming hours. | 11/08/08 18:39:45 By - Evan S. Benn, Shurna Robbins and Kathleen McGrory
Hurricane Paloma a Cat. 3 storm; U.S. landfall unlikely
Hurricane Paloma exploded in strength Friday, growing into a hulking Category 3 storm and forcing residents of the Cayman Islands and Cuba to brace for direct hits this weekend. | 11/07/08 16:20:41 By - Evan S. Benn, Shurna Robbins and Alfonso Chardy
Civilians suffer in Congo's unending conflict
In a camp for eastern Congo's a growing legion of displaced people live in a sprawling collection of canvas-covered shacks where hunger and disease are the worst killers. The International Rescue Committee, a New York-based relief agency, says that although 45,000 are people dying every month — a mortality rate that's 60 percent higher than Africa's average — Congo remains a "forgotten crisis." | 11/07/08 14:47:00 By - Shashank Bengali
In Haiti, rising lake levels plague both people and animals
During three weeks of deadly summer storms, Lake Azuei, Haiti's largest lake and a habitat for rare birds and marine life, busted its banks, flooding several towns. The storms are long gone, but not the problems: The lake's waters have been rising for at least two years, sparking calls by environmentalists and residents for urgent action. | 11/07/08 07:43:11 By - Trenton Daniel and Jacqueline Charles
Iraqis seek more 'withdrawal' talks; U.S. says they're over
The United States delivered Thursday what it said was the final text of the controversial accord on the stationing of U.S. forces in Iraq, but Iraq said more talks are needed before the government can accept it. "We have gotten back to the Iraqi government with a final text. Through this step, we have concluded the process on the U.S. side," said Susan Ziadeh, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad. "Iraq will now need to take it forward through their own process." | 11/06/08 20:00:39 By - Leila Fadel, Nancy A. Youssef and Warren P. Strobel
Treasury Department turns up pressure on Iran
The Bush administration Thursday ratcheted up the financial pressure on Iran by revoking an exemption that gave Iranian banks access to the U.S. financial system, but it stopped short of blacklisting the Islamic Republic's central bank. The announcement coincided with the fall in oil prices, which has hurt Iran's economy. | 11/06/08 19:31:00 By - Kevin G. Hall and Warren P. Strobel
Fighting intensifies in Pakistan's crucial Bajaur region
Violence engulfed Pakistan's northwest Thursday, as anti-government insurgents staged suicide bombings against local counterinsurgents, killing at least 20. Meanwhile, the government said it had killed 15 insurgents in an aerial bombardment. | 11/06/08 18:26:00 By - Saeed Shah
Obama faces an unsettled world on taking office
In 74 days, President Barack Obama will assume responsibility for guiding the nation out of two wars and through a daunting array of real and potential global crises. He's likely to benefit from initial goodwill across much of the planet, where there's profound relief that the Bush years are ending. Still, he faces what may be the most unsettled global scene since the 1930s and '40s. | 11/05/08 19:26:00 By - Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay
In Obama, Latin America hopes to mend fences with U.S.
Barack Obama's historic presidential win spurred hopes throughout Latin America that the U.S. would reengage with a region that's often had an uneasy relationship with its northern neighbor during the past eight years. | 11/05/08 17:58:00 By - Jack Chang
Iraqis worry about Obama, while many GIs celebrate
Iraqis didn't dance in the streets or hold late-night viewing parties to herald the election of a new president of the United States. Many didn't have electricity to follow the television coverage of Barack Obama's ascent to president-elect. | 11/05/08 16:22:00 By - Leila Fadel and Corinne Reilly
Restrictions on student exchanges to Cuba upheld
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the regulations don't violate presumed rights to academic freedom and due process as argued by a group of more than 400 academic professionals that calls itself the Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel, which brought the legal action. | 11/04/08 19:04:00 By - Jack Chang
China, Taiwan sign historic accords, ease hostility
China and Taiwan Tuesday agreed to expand direct flights and broaden shipping and mail services in multibillion-dollar moves that will boost trade and tourism across the troubled Taiwan Strait and ease six decades of hostilities. | 11/04/08 11:40:00 By - Tim Johnson
Rebel leader pushes Congo back to the brink
With his silver-topped cane, finger-wagging rhetoric and a tendency to refer to himself in the third person, rebel leader Laurent Nkunda is the latest big man to stake his claim in Congo. | 11/03/08 19:24:12 By - Shashank Bengali
Pakistanis give Gen. Petraeus an earful on his first visit
Pakistani leaders, frustrated that they're unable to curb U.S. missile strikes on Pakistani territory, publicly reproached Gen. David Petraeus Monday on his maiden visit to this country as the new U.S. commander for the Middle East. | 11/03/08 18:39:00 By - Saeed Shah
Guantanamo jury sentences al Qaida video-maker to life
A military jury Monday convicted Osama bin Laden's media secretary of war crimes for creating an al Qaeda recruiting video that prosecutors argued incited suicide bombers. Within hours, the jury sentenced him to life in prison. | 11/03/08 17:42:49 By - Carol Rosenberg
Iraqi minorities 'insulted' by new provincial assemblies law
The Iraqi parliament approved legislation Monday that allocates six seats in provinces to small ethnic and religious communities in the upcoming provincial elections, but Christians, Yazidis and Shabaks asked for the law to be overturned on the grounds that they remained underrepresented. | 11/03/08 17:23:00 By - Leila Fadel
Dalai Lama says talks a failure, Tibet 'now dying'
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Monday that talks with Beijing to win greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland had been a failure and that Tibet was "now dying" under China's firm grip. | 11/03/08 15:41:00 By - Tim Johnson
Iraq still thirsting for water that's safe to drink
Violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq in recent months, but the fight for a better life is just beginning. From electricity and health care to education and the economy, Iraq has many needs, and safe drinking water is among the most urgent. | 11/03/08 14:15:00 By - Corinne Reilly
'War court czar' wants to retire
A controversial general at the war court has submitted paperwork to retire from the Air Force just months after he was removed from the top legal job and reassigned to logistics, The Miami Herald has learned. | 11/02/08 07:42:41 By - Carol Rosenberg
Amid Iraq's violence, a radio station gives people hope
Sumer FM is Iraq's most popular independent radio station. It broadcasts from a state-of-the-art, brightly decorated studio in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, and its signal reaches every corner of the country. It's been the one thing Iraqis could count on, even through the most violent months when people were too frightened to so much as leave their homes. | 11/01/08 16:35:39 By - Corinne Reilly
Petraeus confronts his next challenge: Afghanistan
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander who's been hailed for bringing stability to Iraq, became the 11th head of the U.S. Central Command on Friday, tasked with reshaping military efforts in America's other war, Afghanistan. | 10/31/08 16:48:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef
U.S. to suspend Bolivia trade benefits as tensions mount
The Bush administration is poised to suspend lucrative trade benefits to Bolivia in a move that could further worsen tensions between the U.S. and the impoverished South American country. | 10/30/08 18:09:00 By - Jack Chang
Another success? Iraqi mayor Bush once hailed flees to U.S.
Two years ago, President Bush hailed Najim al Jabouri as a symbol of success in the battle to curb Iraq's sectarian violence. Today, Jabouri is a symbol of how uncertain that success is. Last month, Jabouri quietly left Tal Afar, the ancient city near Iraq's desert border with Syria where he was the police chief and the mayor, collected his wife and four children and flew to safety in the United States. | 10/30/08 16:55:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Suicide blasts kill at least 31 in Somalia
Five suicide blasts rocked government and international targets in northern Somalia on Wednesday, killing at least 31 people, according to international security officials, in the most highly coordinated terrorist strike in years in the troubled East African nation. | 10/29/08 16:31:00 By - Shashank Bengali
Iraq revises draft troop deal; U.S. likely to reject changes
Among the amendments: Iraqi authorities would have the right to determine whether a U.S. service member was on- or off-duty when he or she committed an alleged crime outside American bases and to decide where the service member would be tried. It also would allow authorities to inspect all U.S. cargo entering the nation. | 10/28/08 19:45:00 By - Leila Fadel
In Asia, doubts grow about a nuclear-free North Korea
As talks over North Korea's nuclear program stumble along, some scholars and policymakers around Asia now believe that the negotiations may never lead Pyongyang to cede all its nuclear weapons. Instead, they say the best that can be hoped for is to halt North Korea from producing nuclear fuel to make any more weapons. | 10/28/08 16:19:00 By - Tim Johnson
Iraqi may hang for murders of 2 U.S. soldiers
An alleged al Qaida in Iraq member should be hanged for his role in the 2006 kidnapping, torture and execution of two American soldiers, an Iraqi court decided Tuesday. | 10/28/08 15:55:00 By - Corinne Reilly
CIA led mystery Syria raid that killed terrorist leader
A CIA-led raid on a compound in eastern Syria killed an al Qaida in Iraq commander who oversaw the smuggling into Iraq of foreign fighters whose attacks claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives, three U.S. officials said Monday. The body of Badran Turki Hishan al Mazidih, an Iraqi national who used the nom de guerre Abu Ghadiya, was flown out of Syria on a U.S. helicopter. | 10/27/08 19:49:57 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef
U.S. lists services it'll cut off if Iraq rejects pact on troops
Among the items the U.S. military has told Iraqi officials the U.S. will stop if a new agreement on U.S. troops isn't approved: air traffic control, SWAT team training, advisers in government ministries, and border patrols. The U.S. military would stop employing some 200,000 Iraqis and wouldn't refurbish 8,500 Humvees it's given to the Security Forces. | 10/27/08 18:26:00 By - Leila Fadel
Slowing British economy could send immigrants home
Britain appears to be moving into a recession for the first time in 17 years, and that's meant many economic migrants from Eastern Europe are considering going home. That suggests that the biggest migration in Europe since World War II — when millions of Eastern Europeans moved West after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, is about to be reversed. | 10/27/08 14:58:00 By - Julie Sell
As clock ticks, U.S. letting thousands of Iraqi prisoners go
The United Nations mandate that's allowed the United States to operate in Iraq will expire at the end of this year. What will happen after that, both to American military operations in the country and to the way the U.S. handles its prisoners, isn't clear. U.S. officials says most of the 17,000 people they hold aren't dangerous. | 10/27/08 14:30:00 By - Corinne Reilly
U.S. threatens to halt services to Iraq without troop accord
The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq. Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday. | 10/26/08 18:20:34 By - Roy Gutman and Leila Fadel
Push to negotiate with the Taliban will begin Monday
A major push to open negotiations with the Taliban on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will begin Monday at a summit of leading political figures from the two countries, as the U.S.-backed governments in Kabul and Islamabad face a mounting threat from Islamic extremists. | 10/26/08 17:42:00 By - Saeed Shah
New elections could turn Israel to the right
Israel appears headed toward new elections that could pull the Middle East nation to the right. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Sunday abandoned her efforts to establish a new governing coalition after she refused to meet demands from ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders that she pledge not to discuss ceding parts of Jerusalem in any peace talks with the Palestinians. | 10/26/08 16:12:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Powerful Iraqi party claims U.S. killed innocent man
The most powerful Sunni Muslim party in Iraq issued an angry statement Saturday accusing Americans of covering up the killing of an innocent member of the party. The Iraqi Islamic Party of Vice President Tariq al Hashimi suspended all "official communication" with American military and civilian officials in Iraq Saturday until it receives an "explanation . . . official apology . . . and a vow to stop the campaign of harassment against the party." The statement followed an incident Friday in which U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a home six miles west of Fallujah in predominantly Sunni Anbar province, detained one man and killed another. | 10/25/08 18:07:00 By - Leila Fadel
Iraq's prime minister won't sign U.S. troop deal
Fearing political division in the parliament and in his country, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki won't sign the just-completed agreement on the status of U.S. troops in Iraq, a leading Iraqi lawmaker told McClatchy Friday. The accord's demise would be a major setback for the Bush administration. | 10/24/08 18:07:00 By - Roy Gutman
Home soccer game is symbol of Palestinians' ultimate goal
Millions of Palestinians around the world are still waiting for the day that they can celebrate the birth of an independent homeland. This weekend, they'll at least be able to celebrate their first home soccer game. | 10/24/08 15:09:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Israel may turn to right as coalition talks crumble
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's hopes of becoming the second woman to lead her nation suffered a serious setback on Friday when a critical political partner refused to join her in a new ruling coalition. | 10/24/08 14:29:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Latin America ties prompt China's entry in development bank
As a sign of China's growing ties with Latin America, the Asian giant announced Thursday that it will join the Inter-American Development Bank, which is the primary multilateral lender focusing on the Western Hemisphere. | 10/23/08 17:33:00 By - Jack Chang
Bush plans to establish U.S. diplomatic post in Iran
The Bush administration will announce in mid-November, after the presidential election, that it intends to establish the first U.S. diplomatic presence in Iran since the 1979-81 hostage crisis, according to senior Bush administration officials. | 10/23/08 17:21:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
As oil prices plummet, Venezuelans likely to suffer
Venezuela's government gets 50 percent of its income from oil revenues and now falling oil prices threaten to force Chavez to scale back the food subsidies and other government programs he's used to lift millions of Venezuelans out of poverty. Not only could this make life harder for the poor but it also could threaten Chavez's political power, because his popularity depends at least in part on his free-spending anti-poverty programs. | 10/23/08 16:50:00 By - Tyler Bridges
China watching U.S. campaign closely, but without anxiety
Most U.S. presidential campaigns bring anxiety to China, which fears a period of instability in Sino-U.S. relations when a new occupant moves into the White House. This year is different. No matter who wins the election Nov. 4, China says it's confident that relations will remain on an even keel, because both countries realize that their economies are too closely linked and their common interests are too broad to rock the diplomatic boat. | 10/23/08 15:28:00 By - Tim Johnson
Suicide car bomber kills at least 13 in Baghdad
A suicide car bomber aiming for a government convoy killed at least 13 people and injured two dozen more in Baghdad on Thursday morning, police and government officials said. Some of the victims died when one of the cars in the convoy, blown into the air, landed on them. | 10/23/08 14:37:56 By - Corinne Reilly and Jenan Hussein
Iraqis take over security of once-violent province
The U.S. military formally handed control over Babil province to Iraqi security forces during a ceremony Thursday morning in the once-violent central state. The Iraqi army and local police are now responsible for security in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces, though U.S. forces continue to assist across the country. | 10/23/08 13:59:00 By - Corinne Reilly
Europe vexes China with rights award to dissident
The European Union on Thursday awarded its top annual prize on human rights to brash dissident Hu Jia, defying China's admonition that such an action would seriously damage its relations with Europe. The European Parliament called Hu, a 35-year-old activist on democracy, environment and AIDS issues, "one of the real defenders of human rights" in China. | 10/23/08 10:39:00 By - Tim Johnson
Mystery shrouds man arrested in Pakistan
Jude Mohammad, an American arrested in Pakistan while trying to travel illegally into a tribal area, is a high-school dropout from Raleigh who went to his father's homeland to try to start a new life for himself, according to a friend of his family. | 10/23/08 07:08:04 By - Martha Quillin and Samuel Spies,
Financial panic now sweeping through South America
The global financial crisis is hitting Latin America this week. On Wednesday, Brazil's two two biggest state banks bought stakes in private financial firms. On Tuesday, Argentina's government said it would nationalize the country's private pension system. Chile, Peru and other countries in the region are also launching emergency initiatives designed to prop up banks and businesses. | 10/22/08 19:14:00 By - Jack Chang
Turned down by its allies, Pakistan seeks IMF rescue
Pakistan has sought an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund, a humiliating step forced on Islamabad after allies refused to come up with the cash needed to prevent the country going bust. | 10/22/08 17:32:00 By - Saeed Shah
U.S. election provoking interest in Latin America
The U.S. presidential election is attracting outsized attention throughout Latin America. Residents, intrigued by the candidates' backgrounds, are debating what a victory by either Barack Obama or John McCain might mean for their countries. | 10/22/08 15:57:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Indonesia fights terrorism with power of persuasion
Sitting in a Papa Ron's pizza outlet in the Indonesian capital, Nasir Abbas looks more like a would-be business entrepreneur than a former Islamic militant. However, for 15 years, before his 2003 arrest and jailhouse conversion, Abbas rode the underground currents of international terrorism. He learned weapons skills, taught fighters in camps from Afghanistan to the Philippines and earned the rank of a senior commander in Jemaah Islamiyah, Southeast Asia's most feared Islamic terrorist group. | 10/22/08 14:38:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
The Philippines: America's other war on terrorism
On a Southeast Asian front that's vital yet largely unfamiliar to most Americans, some 500 U.S. Special Operations Forces and their Filipino counterparts have been fighting a different, unconventional — and seemingly successful — war against Islamic terrorist groups with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida. | 10/22/08 14:16:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
Philippine army relies on a sympathetic public
Philippine Marine Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban strides through a large roadside field, gesturing to the location where volunteers are spending their Sunday building homes for the homeless. "This was once a battleground," he says. "It was abnormal for you to see people gathering like this. But now it's normal." | 10/22/08 14:53:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
Haitian President Réne Préval makes international plea
Roads are washed out, towns are covered in mud and school children still can't go to class after four successive hurricanes, Haitian President René Préval said Tuesday in an appeal for more local and international help for his storm-ravaged nation. | 10/21/08 18:21:32 By - Frances S. Robles
Iraq's cabinet rejects current draft of U.S. troop accord
Shiite Muslim government ministers raised objections Tuesday to a "final draft" of an agreement to authorize U.S. troops to remain in Iraq, and after a four-and-a-half-hour cabinet meeting Iraq's government spokesman said the agreement won't be finalized in its current form. What happens next is unclear. | 10/21/08 18:15:54 By - Leila Fadel
Is Dubai's soaring economy headed for a rough landing?
Dubai has built its name on realizing the unbelievable and, often, the unnecessary: the world's new tallest skyscraper, an indoor ski slope, a constellation of faux islands molded to resemble a map of the world. Now the glitzy commercial capital of the Middle East has begun to wonder whether the global economic crisis will bring its high-flying real-estate market in for a rough landing. | 10/21/08 16:52:00 By - Shashank Bengali
Russians told all is well as economy sinks
Oil prices have plunged from a high earlier this year of $147 a barrel to the $70s this week, dangerously close to the minimum needed to sustain Russia's national budget. Russian stock markets have lost more than 60 percent of their value since May. The rough times have forced the recent sales of five banks, at least three of them for symbolic prices of less than $200. | 10/21/08 16:12:00 By - Tom Lasseter
Iraq's unschooled children evidence of devastation's depth
At age 14, Ahmad Razaq has worked more jobs than he can count. He's painted houses, cleaned office buildings and supervised a janitorial crew. Lately he spends his days washing cars for a few dollars a week outside a dingy hotel in Baghdad. He's never set foot inside a classroom. He's only heard about school from friends. He can't read or write, and he figures he never will. | 10/21/08 15:21:00 By - Corinne Reilly
Three Cuban workers who escaped slave labor awarded $80 million
Three Cuban men forced to work 16-hour shifts at 3 ˝ cents an hour repairing ships for a Cuban joint venture in Curacao won an $80 million judgment Monday in U.S. federal court in Miami. | 10/21/08 06:55:04 By - Frances S. Robles
Next Tiger? Young Briton aims for 2 auto-racing firsts
After a resounding victory in China over the weekend, Lewis Hamilton is on the verge of grabbing not one but two historic firsts in the elite sport of Formula One auto racing: He's poised to become the youngest Formula One world champion ever and the first black man to win the title. | 10/20/08 17:54:00 By - Julie Sell
Pakistani assault on militants triggers refugee crisis
A Pakistani military assault on Taliban and al Qaida extremists near the Afghan border has unleashed a flood of at least 190,000 displaced people who may be forced to spend the approaching winter in tents and could be marooned for years. | 10/20/08 16:49:00 By - Saeed Shah
Economy disrupts China's plans to spiff up factory hub
DONGGUAN, China — So many industrial zones cram into this area of the Pearl River Delta region, nicknamed "factory to the world," that provincial leaders not long ago came up with a scheme to get rid of some less-desirable plants to free up space. | 10/20/08 14:20:00 By - Tim Johnson
Obama fever grips Kenya
When Michelle Nzaumi's communications professor at the University of Nairobi asked students recently to bring to class a favorite speech by a world leader, their choices were remarkably predictable. | 10/19/08 16:36:00 By - Munene Kilongi
McCain evolved from reluctant warrior to interventionist
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain fixed his sights on Saddam Hussein long before President Bush sent the U.S. military to oust the Iraqi dictator in March 2003. | 10/19/08 06:00:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay
Thousands rally in Iraq against proposed U.S troop deal
Muqtada al Sadr, a widely influential Shiite cleric who called for the demonstration, issued a statement demanding that Iraq's parliament reject the deal that would allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011. The deal still must be approved by Iraq's parliament. | 10/18/08 14:11:00 By - Hussein Kadhim and Corinne Reilly
Deal on U.S. troops faces possibly fatal objections in Iraq
A draft agreement by U.S. and Iraqi negotiators that calls for withdrawing Amercan troops by 2012 appears to be facing obstacles in Iraq that could kill the deal before it's implemented, lawmakers in Baghdad said. Negotiators completed the draft this week. Now both governments are reviewing it. | 10/17/08 18:24:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Nancy A. Youssef
Foreign affairs: McCain, Obama view world in starkly different ways
Separated by a generation and by one's legendary military experience, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama offer voters contrasting worldviews, suggesting that they'd pursue different foreign policies as president. | 10/17/08 14:22:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
One word means both 'hip' and 'hot' in French. It's 'Obama'
Obama's visage appears between the svelte curves of fashion models on Europe's most prestigious runways. His speeches are remixed into thumping music tracks in underground dance clubs. His campaign slogans are the foundation for modern art hanging on trendy Parisian gallery walls. More than any American politician since John F. Kennedy, Obama has become a cultural icon in Europe. | 10/17/08 11:58:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Iceland still in deepest financial hole of all
The global financial crisis has hit almost every country in the world, but tiny Iceland may have been struck hardest of all. Teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the island nation in recent weeks has seen its biggest banks collapse, jobs disappear overnight and European nations threaten legal action. | 10/16/08 17:15:00 By - Julie Sell
Chavez bashes capitalism, U.S. to distract voters
As crucial elections approach, President Hugo Chavez is ratcheting up attacks on opposition forces and wielding other polarizing tactics to distract Venezuelans from the nation's glaring problems, including soaring inflation and a record-high crime rate. | 10/16/08 16:17:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Russian lawyer suspects poisoning attempt
A high-profile attorney for the family of a murdered Russian journalist suggested Thursday that Russian provocateurs might have slipped small amounts of toxic mercury into her car in an attempt to intimidate her. | 10/16/08 15:31:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Recent NATO commander tells what it's really like in Afghanistan
Though under-staffed, multi-national forces are making progress in Afghanistan, the former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan told the Beaufort Rotary Club during a luncheon Wednesday. | 10/16/08 06:38:57 By - Patrick Donohue
Al Qaida in Iraq leader killed in raid, U.S. says
A suspected terrorist killed by American troops in a raid earlier this month has been identified as al Qaida in Iraq's No. 2 leader, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Abu Qaswarah, also known as Abu Sara, died Oct. 5 in the northern city of Mosul during a firefight between suspected al Qaida members and American soldiers raiding a building where they believed Qaswarah was hiding. | 10/15/08 18:44:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Hussein Kadhim
Financial crisis forces fire sales of Russian businesses, banks
Known for its light government regulation and widespread corruption, Russia's economy has been unable to cope with the tightening of credit, leading to the fire sales of banks and firms. The upheaval also raises serious concerns about the Russian government's ability, or perhaps willingness, to bring transparency to its financial system. | 10/15/08 17:24:00 By - Tom Lasseter
Amid turmoil, some China factories prosper, some don't
Global financial turmoil has sent gale-force winds across some factory floors in China, and barely a breeze across others. The differing fates of factory owners such as David Xu and James Jiang illustrate why China Inc. displays some resilience in the face of the global crisis. | 10/15/08 15:29:00 By - Tim Johnson
New intelligence report says Pakistan is 'on the edge'
A growing al Qaida-backed insurgency, combined with growing economic and political conflicts, is plunging America's key ally in the war on terror deeper into turmoil, says a soon-to-be completed U.S. intelligence assessment. One U.S. official who participated in drafting the top secret document said it portrays the situation in Pakistan as "very bad." | 10/14/08 18:28:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott
Latin American markets rally, but region still shaky
Stock exchanges rebounded for the second day throughout Latin America on Tuesday, a hopeful sign for an economically buoyant region thrown off balance by the global financial crisis. | 10/14/08 18:17:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Financial crisis improves political fortunes of Britain's Brown
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, widely credited for inspiring financial bailout plans around the world, is reaching farther with calls for a coordinated overhaul of international financial regulation. His ideas are getting a closer look after the Bush administration's decision Monday to partially nationalize banks, a step Britain took a week ago. | 10/14/08 17:02:00 By - Julie Sell
Iraqi VP: U.S., Iraq won't reach accord on troops this year
With the United Nations mandate authorizing U.S. forces to be in Iraq expiring on Dec. 31, that means the U.S. may not have a legitimate right to remain in the country, Tariq al Hashimi, Iraq's Sunni Muslim vice president, told McClatchy. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told a London newspaper that if there were no agreement "U.S. forces will be confined to their bases." | 10/13/08 19:12:00 By - Leila Fadel
Severe economic crisis threatens Pakistan's stability
A worsening economic crisis in Pakistan is pushing millions more people into poverty, and experts fear that it could help Islamic extremists recruit new converts. | 10/13/08 18:37:00 By - Saeed Shah
Iraqis are being attacked and killed for returning to their homes
Haj Ali's family had been home for less than a month when a makeshift bomb blew off part of his garage. The message was clear: Go back to wherever you came from. In Baghdad, where most of the sectarian cleansing has taken place, about 8 percent of the people who moved within the country have gone back to their neighborhoods, according to the International Organization for Migration. | 10/13/08 17:33:00 By - Corinne Reilly
U.S. troops now serve as welcome wagon in Baghdad
It was dark, just after 8 p.m. in Ghazaliyah, a sprawling neighborhood in west Baghdad, and a platoon of American soldiers was out knocking on doors. Lucas Stump, a 26-year-old Army lieutenant from Michigan, pulled out a typed list of addresses. "I think it's here," he said, pointing to a gated house in one of Ghazaliyah's nicer, cleaner corners. The Iraqi Army officer accompanying the Americans nodded in agreement. | 10/13/08 16:52:00 By - Corinne Reilly
Germany, France, U.K. launch major financial-rescue plans
Acting with urgency and unity, which had been sorely lacking, European nations unveiled plans Monday that could inject a mind-boggling $1 trillion into troubled banking systems whose failures have threatened to drag the world into a deep recession. | 10/13/08 10:53:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Questions and answers about new bank rescue efforts
WASHINGTON - By adopting a banking rescue plan based on efforts in Great Britain, European leaders took a very different approach from Washington's. | 10/12/08 19:32:00 By - Kevin G. Hall
Treasury will buy stock in banks; stocks bounce back
Treasury’s new point man for the bank rescue program, Neel Kashkari, gave his first address Monday morning, laying out just how the agency will carry out a $700 billion rescue plan passed by Congress last month. He confirmed taking equity positions in struggling banks is near the top of the list. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its biggest one-day point gain ever, soaring more than 936 points, or 11 percent. | 10/12/08 16:06:00 By - Kevin G. Hall and Dion Nissenbaum
Thousands of Christians flee killings in Mosul
Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq. The killings follow large protests by the community last month against the passage of the provincial elections law. An article that would give representation to Christians and other minorities was removed from the law before its passage. | 10/11/08 18:43:00 By - Leila Fadel
Bush, global leaders vow to cooperate in financial crisis
Leaders of the world's most industrialized nations agreed Saturday to work together to attack the widening financial crisis. Meanwhile, in a strongly worded statement, the managing director of the IMF offered a grim summation, saying banks weren't just having trouble accessing capital, but were in danger of insolvency, meaning many big banks and corporations are at risk of collapse. | 10/11/08 18:26:00 By - Kevin G. Hall
Bush to remove N. Korea from terror list to save nuke deal
President Bush is set to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring nations as early as Saturday in an end-of-term bid to save a deal to eliminate the secretive communist nation's nuclear weapons program, State Department officials said Friday. | 10/10/08 18:40:00 By - Warren P. Strobel
Suicide bomber in Pakistan kills 30 at anti-Taliban meeting
Pakistan's efforts to combat terrorism suffered a major blow Friday when a suicide bomber attacked a tribal gathering that was part of an emerging anti-Taliban movement, killing at least 30 and injuring 100. | 10/10/08 17:58:00 By - Saeed Shah
Europe's central banks still playing catch-up in meltdown
At the end of Europe's worst financial week in decades, after repeated and failed attempts to halt the tailspin of global markets and restore trust in economic leaders, some European economists are throwing up their hands in frustration. "What to do to restore confidence is something you should perhaps ask a psychologist," Jean-Christophe Caffet, an analyst at France's Natixis Bank, said Friday. "The key driver here is confidence, and . . . we don't have a way to bring confidence." | 10/10/08 16:04:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
China's sitting on piles of money. Why won't it help?
China sits on a huge pile of money, and its policymakers crave global assets. So why doesn’t China spend a little and save the world from global financial meltdown? Economists give a number of reasons why China prefers to sit on the sidelines of the global turmoil, focusing instead on protecting its economy and maintaining growth powered by consumers at home. | 10/10/08 06:56:48 By - Tim Johnson
Assassinations replacing car bombs in Iraq
U.S. and Iraqi officials are seeing a shift in violence in Iraq from mass car bombings to assassinations using magnetic bombs, weapons with silencers and bicycle bombs. As provincial elections approach, some officials worry that assassinations will increase as political parties try to eradicate their competitors. | 10/09/08 17:56:00 By - Leila Fadel
Will U.S. move toward British bailout approach? Maybe
A day after the United Kingdom unveiled a big bailout plan of its own, the approach crafted here is being talked about by many analysts as the right way forward for other countries too — possibly including the U.S. Investors might be forgiven for wondering which government is at the forefront of efforts to curb the global financial crisis. | 10/09/08 17:28:00 By - Julie Sell
Mullen: Afghanistan military situation will worsen next year
The highest-ranking U.S. military officer warned Thursday that the situation in Afghanistan will likely get worse next year and that it will take time to turn it around because it has been headed in "the wrong direction" for the last two years. | 10/09/08 00:22:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef
Appeals court blocks release of Guantanamo detainees
A federal appeals court temporarily blocked the release of 17 Chinese-born Muslims detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a day after a landmark decision required them to be freed to the U.S. The move Wednesday night by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sets the stage for a protracted court battle over the fate of the men, who've been held for nearly seven years despite being cleared for release by the U.S. military. | 10/08/08 21:31:00 By - Marisa Taylor
Financial crisis could put crimp in defense spending plans
In the past eight years, defense spending, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has risen 52 percent, and Pentagon officials are calling for additional manpower and weapons that will push the total still higher. But military officials and experts are worrying that America may have to start reining in defense spending as the country faces huge bailout costs, an aging baby boomer population and growing health care expenses. | 10/08/08 20:11:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef
Russia shutters its markets again as deeper problems emerge
Russia, until recently the darling of foreign stock funds, is facing deeper economic problems in the ongoing crisis than many other countries are because of rampant speculation by investors who bought shares with loans they can't repay. | 10/08/08 18:55:00 By - Tom Lasseter
Familiar ring: Britain bails out its banks — and stocks tumble
The British government took a bold gamble to try stemming its financial crisis on Wednesday, unveiling a sweeping rescue plan that partly nationalizes its major banks. But the initial reaction from financial markets and people on the street was chilly. The package totals about $692 billion. About one-eighth of that money involves a direct infusion of capital. | 10/08/08 18:12:00 By - Julie Sell
Iraqi provincial elections likely to be held early next year
Iraq's presidency council passed a critical law Wednesday to organize provincial elections that were originally scheduled for Oct. 1 and now are likely to be held sometime early next year. | 10/08/08 16:21:00 By - Leila Fadel
Latin leftists gloating over 'Comrade' Bush's bailout
With the Bush administration's Treasury Department resorting to government bailout after government bailout to keep the U.S. economy afloat, leftist governments and their political allies in Latin America are having a field day, gloating one day and taunting Bush the next for adopting the types of interventionist government policies that he's long condemned. | 10/07/08 18:47:00 By - Tyler Bridges
New U.S. intelligence report warns 'victory' not certain in Iraq
A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year. | 10/07/08 17:15:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef
With leaders divided, EU nations fend for themselves
One day after being buffeted by record stock market losses, European leaders embraced an incremental approach Tuesday in response to the economic crisis that has overwhelmed global markets. | 10/07/08 16:45:00 By - Dion Nissenbaum
Saddam now seen as 'Father of Martyrs' by visitors to his grave
In the hometown of Saddam Hussein, they still call the late dictator The President. Inside a hall that once held an office Saddam used once or twice a year lies his tomb. A sheet embroidered with gold covers the burial site: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his messenger." | 10/07/08 16:14:00 By - Leila Fadel
Kenya deports writer who wrote anti-Obama book
Jerome Corsi, the controversial author of a much-criticized book slamming Sen. Barack Obama, was detained in Kenya on Tuesday for an immigration violation as he arrived for a press conference to promote his book. | 10/07/08 00:08:00 By - Shashank Bengali
East Asia remembers last crisis as it braces for new one
More than a decade after the last major economic crisis, East Asia is spooked by the prospect of a new global financial tidal wave rolling its way. Some East Asians are putting a lock on their wallets, shunning the fancy banquets that are a tradition in Asia, cutting back on taxis, even buying gold to hedge against calamity. | 10/07/08 10:55:09 By - Tim Johnson
The only place unaffected by financial turmoil: Iraq
The Mexican peso plunged to its lowest level in years. In Argentina, stocks fell 10 percent. Brazil and Russia temporarily halted trading after a series of steep drops on their exchanges. Sweden, Denmark and Austria joined Ireland and Germany on a growing list of European countries that pledged to guarantee bank deposits to tamp down consumer worries. On the very day that Washington began to unfold the $700 billion economic rescue mission, foreign governments and investors seemed resigned to a long period of tight credit and turmoil. | 10/06/08 19:25:00 By - David Goldstein
Wave of violence worsens Pakistan's security, economic crisis
A wave of violence from Islamic extremists against politicians in Pakistan intensified Monday with a suicide bombing at the home of an opposition lawmaker that left at least 18 dead. | 10/06/08 17:49:00 By - Saeed Shah
How an American makes culinary success in China
Alan Wong of Sacramento, Calif., is the most successful American restaurant owner in China. In an interview with McClatchy Beijing Bureau Chief Tim Johnson, Wong tells some secrets. | 10/06/08 16:43:00 By - Tim Johnson
California restaurateur rides wave of success in China
Alan Wong still remembers the day back in 2000 when his father hit him up with that annoying question about his lack of gumption in finding a career. "It was just kind of, 'What are you doing with your life?'" Wong recalls. The 33-year-old Wong laughs off the question now. | 10/06/08 16:19:00 By - Tim Johnson
Fewer black funeral banners blanket Baghdad
When a loved one dies in Iraq, hanging a black banner is the first order of business. It is a custom that existed here long before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, but over the last five and a half years, the banners have taken on new meaning. They are an informal measure of security, a way for residents to gauge whether their neighborhood is becoming more or less dangerous. | 10/05/08 14:47:00 By - Corinne Reilly
11 Iraqis killed in U.S. raid in Mosul
Eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed Sunday during a U.S. raid in Mosul, including three women and three children, officials said. Neighbors told Iraqi police in Mosul that the family was peaceful, but the U.S. military said five of the dead were terrorists who had targeted American soldiers. | 10/05/08 14:46:00 By - Corinne Reilly and Yasseem Taha
Displaced Iraqis, now told to go home, fear for their lives
For all the debate in the United States about whether the surge has succeeded, there's no debate in the camps of displaced people throughout Iraq. Forced from their homes by the years of sectarian violence, they've now been told to go home by Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration. But many are unwilling, saying friends and family have told them it would mean death. | 10/05/08 11:47:38 By - Leila Fadel
Europe's leaders find little unity in financial crisis
LONDON — European leaders, having denounced the U.S. regulatory lapses that led to the Wall Street crisis, are attempting this weekend to cope with the spillover on their own countries. | 10/04/08 16:27:00 By - Julie Sell
Venezuelan had millions to spend in Bolivia, witness claims
Witnesses in the Miami federal trial involving a mysterious suitcase filled with $800,000 sent from Venezuela to Argentina have shed light on the financial operations of the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. One witness said Venezuela's ambassador to Bolivia told him he had a fund of $100 million to spend in that country. | 10/04/08 14:47:58 By - Casey Woods and Gerardo Reyes
Prosecutors seek to reverse war court sentence
Pentagon prosecutors are asking a military judge to reverse himself and reassemble the jury that convicted Osama bin Laden's driver at Guantanamo, seeking to overturn a sentence that could make the first war court convict eligible for release by New Year's Eve. | 10/03/08 19:13:13 By - Carol Rosenberg