Capriles ‘not scared’ as he prepares to face Chávez

Henrique Capriles Radonski, the 39-year-old governor of Miranda state, prides himself on never having lost an election. But as he takes on President Hugo Chávez in the Oct. 7 presidential race, he will be facing a 13-year incumbent with the resources of an oil-rich nation behind him. | 02/13/12 20:05:11 By - Jim Wyss

Greeks worry that a future of austerity is no future at all

Greeks began cleaning up their battered and scorched capital Monday after violent anti-austerity riots broke out this weekend. But whether they can clean up what's left of a badly damaged psyche remains to be seen. The physical damage was clear: At least 120 people injured and 45 torched buildings, including a beloved historic cinema housed in a neoclassical building. | 02/13/12 19:34:00 By - Joanna Kakissis

After killings of Iran nuclear scientists, Israeli diplomats targeted

Israeli officials blamed Iran on Monday for nearly simultaneous attempts to bomb Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia in what some analysts suggested may be Iranian retaliation for a series of attacks on its nuclear program that have been widely blamed on Israel. | 02/13/12 17:32:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Awaiting pope: New Castro, same mess of an economy in Cuba

Two years before Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, then-Defense Minister Raúl Castro cracked down on a half-dozen young academics who had dared propose market reforms for the island’s Soviet-styled economy. | 02/13/12 16:55:12 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Syrian violence finds its echo in Lebanon

In this northern Lebanese city, two adjoining neighborhoods reflect the growing concern that the violence raging in Syria could soon spill into Lebanon, whose own sectarian civil war captivated the world a generation ago. | 02/13/12 16:28:00 By - David Enders

Egypt accuses U.S. of using NGOs to thwart revolution

Only days after a visit by the Pentagon's top general to smooth testy relations with Egypt's military rulers, the state news service on Monday released a months-old report that accuses the Obama administration of funneling cash to pro-democracy groups in Cairo after it was caught off guard by the uprising last year against longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak. | 02/13/12 16:19:00 By - Omnia Al Desoukie and Hannah Allam

African villagers embrace U.S. role in hunt for Lord's Resistance Army leader

On the edge of this quiet town in the isolated forests of central Africa sits one of America's newest military outposts, a base made of grass surrounded by razor wire. Outside, a baby chimpanzee plays on a green rope, and three local policemen lounge in a pickup truck. Inside, up to 30 U.S. special forces plot the demise of one of the world's most elusive and sadistic rebels. | 02/13/12 14:52:00 By - Alan Boswell

China looks to spur consumer spending to maintain growth rate

China's government, which has overseen enviable economic growth for the past three decades by pushing huge volumes of exports, is searching for ways to get its own people to buy more things in hopes that will help sustain its economic miracle. | 02/13/12 14:46:00 By - Mark Melnicoe

Pakistan's ISI yields to Supreme Court, surrenders prisoners

The Pakistani Supreme Court on Monday forced authorities to produce seven men who had vanished from prison two years ago into the apparent custody of the military's main spy agency as the court continued to assert its authority against both the country's powerful army and its weak civilian government. | 02/13/12 06:20:54 By - Saeed Shah

Arab League seeks joint U.N peacekeeping force for Syria

The Arab League voted Sunday to seek a joint U.N. peacekeeping force for Syria as regional diplomats met in Cairo to discuss their dwindling options for stopping the bloodshed in a nearly year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad. | 02/12/12 17:13:00 By - Omnia Al Desoukie

After Hu, what? Pivotal visit for likely Chinese successor Xi

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrives in the United States on Monday for a high-profile visit where he'll be feted as if he were the president of China — the post he's expected to take next year. | 02/12/12 13:59:00 By - Kevin G. Hall

Top US general meets Egyptian leader amid strained relations

The Pentagon's top general met Saturday with the head of Egypt's ruling military council amid the fraying of bilateral relations over a criminal case against 16 American civil society workers. | 02/11/12 14:29:00 By - Hannah Allam

U.S. officials: Al Qaida behind Syria bombings

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy. | 02/10/12 20:46:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Chavez has opponent in Venezuela election

Once jailed governor hopes to give Hugo Chávez a run for the presidency Henrique Capriles, the energetic governor of Venezuela’s Miranda state, is leading the polls for Sunday’s opposition primary election. The winner will face President Chávez in October. | 02/10/12 19:29:04 By - Jim Wyss

In court's crosshairs, Pakistan's military refuses to produce prisoners

In a court battle testing the impunity long enjoyed by Pakistan's intelligence service, the Pakistani military said Thursday that it wouldn't bring forward seven men who were mysteriously kidnapped from prison in 2010 — allegedly by intelligence agents — because they were in extremely poor health. | 02/09/12 17:15:00 By - Saeed Shah

Deadly drone strike signals renewed U.S.-Pakistan cooperation

A U.S. drone strike reportedly killed a notorious Pakistani al Qaida operative before dawn Thursday in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the latest sign that the United States and Pakistan are stepping up coordinated intelligence operations despite a downturn in relations. | 02/09/12 15:41:00 By - Tom Hussain

Mental problems plagued Afghan shooting suspect, his father says

The Afghan soldier suspected of killing four French troops last month had serious mental health problems and a history of violence, but he wasn't a Taliban insurgent, his father told McClatchy. | 02/08/12 16:32:00 By - Jon Stephenson

Egypt vows to press NGO case despite U.S. threats

Egypt's government won't back off its criminal investigation of American and other civil society workers even if the U.S. withdraws its financial aid, Egypt's military-appointed prime minister said Wednesday, in a case that could spell the end of one of the United States' closest Arab alliances. | 02/08/12 16:24:00 By - Omnia Al Desoukie

Greek austerity moves leave nation's economic safety net in tatters

The shipyards are deserted in this town just west of Piraeus, Greece's main port, and unemployment hovers at 60 percent. The country is at the edge of bankruptcy, and with more government spending cuts looming, newly impoverished Greeks are turning to charity for health care, medicines and food. | 02/08/12 15:34:00 By - Roy Gutman

Rumors swirl around a famous Chinese crime-fighter

Rumors of a possible high-profile asylum attempt, purge or maybe just an awkwardly timed sick leave swirled Wednesday around a famous Chinese law enforcement official, in a case with possible implications for a rising star in China's national politics. | 02/08/12 14:09:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Haiti Prime Minister Conille: Donor aid needs revision

Two years after a massive earthquake, Haiti is even more vulnerable to natural catastrophes and still does not have the capacity to manage even small events, Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille said Tuesday. | 02/08/12 06:40:49 By - Erika Bolstad and Jacqueline Charles

U.S. Gen. Dempsey heads to Egypt with relations on line

With $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid and a three-decade relationship hanging in the balance, U.S. officials said Tuesday that Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would travel to Egypt to press for the criminal charges against at least 16 American nonprofit workers to be dropped. | 02/07/12 18:38:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef, Jonathan S. Landay and Hannah Allam

U.S. imposes new sanctions on Iran, turning up the heat

The Obama administration announced tough new targeted sanctions Monday against the Central Bank of Iran, ratcheting up economic pain on Tehran in a move intended to drive it into new international negotiations over its nuclear program, but one that could prove a trigger point for conflict. | 02/06/12 18:03:00 By - Kevin G. Hall

Syria peace prospects look grim as U.S. closes embassy

The United States scrambled Monday to salvage an Arab peace initiative aimed at halting Syria's descent into all-out civil war, closing the U.S. Embassy in Damascus and deliberating with European and Arab allies on other measures aimed at forcing President Bashar Assad to surrender power. | 02/06/12 14:05:44 By - Hannah Allam and Jonathan S. Landay

China denies latest Tibetan self-immolations happened in Sichuan province

Chinese officials denied reports that three ethnic Tibetans lit themselves on fire Friday, according to a story Monday in a state-controlled newspaper. | 02/06/12 08:25:44 By - Tom Lasseter

Egypt files criminal charges against NGO workers, including 19 Americans

Egyptian investigators filed criminal charges Sunday against at least 40 international civil society workers, reportedly including the son of a U.S. Cabinet secretary, in a controversial case that could cost the ruling generals millions of dollars in U.S. aid. | 02/05/12 15:34:00 By - Hannah Allam

Car bomb kills seven in southern Afghanistan

A car bomb exploded Sunday near the police headquarters of the southern city of Kandahar, killing seven people and wounding at least 19, provincial officials said. | 02/05/12 13:24:00 By - Ali Safi

Three more Tibetans immolate themselves in apparent protest

Three ethnic Tibetans set themselves on fire in the Chinese province of Sichuan on Friday, bringing the total number of self-immolations to 19 in less than a year, according to a report released by a rights group over the weekend. | 02/05/12 10:13:02 By - Tom Lasseter

Taliban responsible for 77% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, U.N. says

The Taliban and other insurgent groups were responsible for nearly 80 percent of the civilian deaths in the war in Afghanistan last year, said a U.N. report released Saturday. | 02/04/12 17:23:00 By - Jon Stephenson

Iranian leader dismisses sanctions, warns U.S. against war

Dismissing economic sanctions that are beginning to bite, Iran's supreme leader said Friday that his country wouldn't bow to Western demands that it stop enriching uranium and warned that a war over its nuclear program would be "10 times more harmful" to the United States. | 02/03/12 19:24:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

White House scrambles to ease fallout from Panetta's Afghanistan comments

The Obama administration scrambled Thursday to tamp down the fallout out from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's surprise announcement that the United States would end its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected — a revelation that heightened confusion over U.S. strategy and stoked Afghan distrust of American intentions. | 02/02/12 19:20:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Arab monitors were unprepared for Syria, report shows

The Arab League's mission to monitor the bloodshed in Syria was doomed from the start, with some observers seemingly oblivious to the gravity of their assignment and others lacking the expertise to do the job, according to a leaked internal report. | 02/02/12 01:43:00 By - Hannah Allam

Fury over soccer deaths leads to new clashes, threats to Egypt's government

Thousands of angry sports fans besieged the Egyptian Interior Ministry on Thursday to avenge 74 deaths in riots over a soccer match the previous night, as political forces seized on the tragedy to renew demands for the ouster of the military-appointed interim government. | 02/02/12 07:05:33 By - Hannah Allam and Omnia Al Desoukie

U.S. combat in Afghanistan will end next year, Panetta says

The U.S. military plans to change the focus of its Afghanistan mission from combat to training local forces by the end of 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday, apparently accelerating the timeline for Afghan forces to take over security responsibilities from NATO troops. | 02/01/12 19:07:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Unit leader among Marines who urinated on corpses

One of the Marines shown urinating on three corpses in Afghanistan in a widely distributed Internet video was the unit's leader, two U.S. military officials have told McClatchy, raising concerns that poor command standards contributed to an incident that may have damaged the U.S. war effort. | 02/01/12 17:59:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Mexico town takes a monetary path less traveled

Organizers in this verdant hill town in Veracruz state have coaxed a tiny economic experiment on the citizenry: They created an alternative local currency. | 02/01/12 16:18:00 By - Tim Johnson

Former Contras differ over value of war with Sandinistas

It was at the end of January 1982 that the Contras, with help from the CIA, approved a plan to take the war against the Sandinistas beyond the Honduran border to Nicaraguan territory. | 02/01/12 07:02:25 By - Alfonso Chardy

U.S., allies mount pressure on Syria at U.N.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led a high-wattage diplomatic push Tuesday to persuade the U.N. Security Council to endorse an Arab plan for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, but she couldn't break the steadfast objections of Russia and China. | 01/31/12 19:27:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Blaming the messenger: Greece's chief statistician under fire

Greece has won strong endorsements in the past year for shoring up its economic statistics after years of fudging data to conceal its deficits and financial mismanagement, but the man who's responsible for restoring the country's reputation is now the target of possible prosecution. | 01/31/12 18:02:00 By - Roy Gutman

Egypt's crackdown on U.S. groups finds support at home

The scenario is familiar to Egyptian political activists: Authorities harass pro-democracy groups, raid their offices, ban employees from travel and threaten criminal charges to smear them as foreign agents. | 01/31/12 17:46:00 By - Hannah Allam and Nancy A. Youssef

French decision to accelerate exit causes some Afghans to question NATO

The announcement by France last week that it would speed up the exit of its troops from Afghanistan has been greeted with a mixture of cynicism, disbelief and concern by politicians here. | 01/31/12 16:01:00 By - Jon Stephenson

Egypt boosts aid to wounded protesters, but many still suffer

Egypt is stepping up efforts to treat thousands of wounded revolutionaries, but many of the injured say they've yet to receive compensation and feel their sacrifices for democracy are going unnoticed by the transitional government. | 01/30/12 16:22:00 By - Mohannad Sabry

Parties campaign in Pakistan's tribal areas despite fears of Taliban

For the first time ever, political parties have started campaigning for votes in the militant-infested tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, ahead of a general election likely within the next 12 months. | 01/30/12 15:29:00 By - Tom Hussain

Term limits approved for Cuba's Communist Party, government officials

Cuba's Communist Party Sunday cleared the way for a long-term renovation of its Central Committee that might hint at the island's future leaders, while Raúl Castro issued a strong call for openness within the party and mass media — but only up to a point. | 01/30/12 06:58:23 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Pakistan's high court to hear murder charges against spy agencies

Pakistan's military spy agencies face unprecedented public scrutiny when the country's Supreme Court on Monday begins hearing charges that operatives murdered suspected militants in custody. | 01/29/12 14:24:00 By - Tom Hussain

U.S. defense chief confirms Pakistan holds doctor with role in bin Laden raid

A senior American official has for the first time admitted that a Pakistani doctor played a key role in tracking Osama bin Laden to his hideout in northern Pakistan and called for his release. | 01/29/12 12:36:00 By - Saeed Shah

Chinese village leader snaps, and some locals applaud

On a chilly Sunday afternoon this month, Gao Jinghe walked up to the leader of his local township and stabbed him on the side of the face. After years of challenging what he called corrupt business deals involving officials, many here say, Gao Jinghe had finally snapped. News of the Jan. 15 attacks was all the more shocking because of Gao's background: He's the elected leader of Beitai Village, which is just down the road from Liuzhangzi and some 140 miles northeast of Beijing. | 01/29/12 11:52:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Brazilian leader under pressure on rights ahead of Cuba trip

Dilma Rousseff arrives in Cuba on Monday on her first visit there as Brazil's president, and she's facing pressure to take a stronger and more public stance on human rights violations that continue under the Cuban government. | 01/28/12 19:37:00 By - Vinod Sreeharsha

With violence rising, Arab League suspends Syria mission

The Arab League suspended its Syria observation mission Saturday, saying it was too dangerous to continue, as battles between security and opposition forces raged just outside the capital, Damascus. | 01/28/12 18:17:00 By - Hannah Allam

U.S. lawmakers' meeting sets back Obama's Afghan agenda

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan had planned to use his latest foray to the region to build Afghan government support for the nascent U.S. effort to kindle peace talks with the Taliban. Instead, Ambassador Marc Grossman found himself last week putting out a fire ignited by a meeting between four U.S. Congress members and Afghan opposition leaders in Germany | 01/27/12 18:16:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Egypt bars U.S. workers from travel, escalating crackdown

Egypt has barred at least 10 American and European civil society workers — including the son of a senior Obama administration official — from leaving the country in a sign that the ruling generals are extending their crackdown on foreign pro-democracy groups. | 01/26/12 17:06:00 By - Hannah Allam

Egyptians argue over fate of charred Mubarak party building

A year ago this week, flames swallowed the headquarters of now-deposed President Hosni Mubarak, a scene shown on live television that made the revolution real for millions of Egyptians. | 01/26/12 15:05:00 By - Hannah Allam

Attack on NATO convoy kills 4 civilians in Afghanistan

A suicide car bomber killed four Afghan civilians and wounded dozens Thursday in the southern province of Helmand, local officials said. | 01/26/12 12:58:00 By - Ali Safi

Details of Cuba's case against U.S. subcontractor Alan Gross leak out

A U.S. government subcontractor serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba slipped three satellite phones, three laptops and 13 Blackberry phones into the island, a court document in his case showed. | 01/26/12 07:03:48 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Pakistan's Gilani, Kayani make nice, easing fears of coup

Fears that Pakistan's military might orchestrate a collapse of the civilian government abated Wednesday after the prime minister and army chief publicly signaled that they'd reconciled their political differences. | 01/25/12 19:00:00 By - Tom Hussain

Where Egypt toppled Mubarak, a modest candidate makes his own run

Chanting "Down with military rule," hundreds of thousands of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square on Wednesday for the anniversary of the revolt that ended Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian rule and left the country in the hands of a few entrenched generals. | 01/25/12 18:36:00 By - Hannah Allam

Nissan to build $2 billion Mexico plant, sidestepping security concerns

In a sign that global manufacturers are looking beyond Mexico's security woes, Nissan said Wednesday that it will invest $2 billion in a new auto plant in Aguascalientes, a central city that has seen problems with crime groups. | 01/25/12 17:39:00 By - Tim Johnson

Al Qaida still holding American contractor hostage in Pakistan

A kidnapped 70-year-old American aid contractor is alive and in good health, being held by a Pakistani al Qaida affiliate that's likely to use him as a bargaining chip, according to militants, security officials and analysts. | 01/25/12 15:47:00 By - Tom Hussain

Navy SEALs rescue 2 held captive in Somalia

American commandos dropped into Somalia on Tuesday night to rescue two aid workers who were held hostage, including an American, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. | 01/25/12 11:24:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Obama taps career diplomat Pamela Ann White as Haiti ambassador

President Barack Obama has nominated Ambassador Pamela Ann White, a career diplomat with more than 35 years public service experience mostly in Africa, as the United States’ next ambassador to a quake-ravaged Haiti. | 01/25/12 07:47:04 By - Jacqueline Charles

Egypt's revolutionaries see little progress a year after revolt

A year ago, Tahrir Square was a carnival of unity — Egyptian protesters stood Christian with Muslim, Islamist with leftist, women with men, rich with poor — for the common cause of bringing down Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime. | 01/24/12 13:47:00 By - Hannah Allam

Mexican leader's challenge: Staying safe once out of office

Allegations of human rights abuses by Mexico's military bedevil President Felipe Calderon, raising a dilemma familiar to Latin American presidents: Where can he go upon leaving office to stay safe and out of court? | 01/24/12 17:57:00 By - Tim Johnson

Europe, U.S. impose new Iran sanctions but repeat offer for talks

Even as they tightened the financial screws on Iran with new sanctions on Monday, the United States and its European allies reiterated their readiness to resume talks with Tehran on curbing what they suspect is a secret nuclear weapons development program. | 01/23/12 19:25:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Young activists go online to promote Middle East peace

Jewish and Arab activists on Monday held the first day of a two-day virtual peace conference to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The event is hosted by YaLa-Young Leaders, an online group of around 40,000 that uses social media technology to promote peace and development in the region. | 01/23/12 18:57:00 By - Kelsi Loos

4 leading Kenyans charged in '07 election violence

The International Criminal Court on Monday charged four Kenyans, including two serious presidential contenders, with crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in ethnic violence after a disputed presidential election in 2007. | 01/23/12 18:38:00 By - Alan Boswell

1st Parliament session shows Egypt's new political landscape

Egypt's first elected Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak took office Monday, with several lawmakers tweaking their oaths of office or wearing sashes to reflect the newfound power of Islamists and the disenchantment with military rule since the popular uprising a year ago. | 01/23/12 14:57:00 By - Hannah Allam

Honduras becomes murder capital of the world

Sitting in the plant-filled patio of his home outside the capital, anti-corruption crusader Gustavo Alfredo Landaverde uttered what few people have the courage to say out loud in this poor Central American nation: “We are rotten to the core,” he said of the drug-related graft infecting virtually every layer of law enforcement in Honduras. | 01/23/12 07:01:09 By - Frances Robles

U.S. envoy tells Taliban terms for peace talks

The Taliban must promise to disassociate from international terrorism and affirm their desire to participate in a peace process for tentative talks on a political settlement to the Afghan war to continue, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday. | 01/22/12 13:59:00 By - Ali Safi

Islamists elected to dominate Egyptian parliament

More than 10 million Egyptians cast votes for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, handing it 47 percent of the parliament. But the lack of an outright majority means the FJP must build alliances, most likely with established liberal parties, to keep the focus on issues such as economic initiatives and the transfer of power from Egypt's interim military rulers. | 01/22/12 01:34:00 By - Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry

With U.S. troops hardly gone, Iraq's government is coming apart

Is the country headed for another round of sectarian strife? Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, is driving to consolidate control and sideline more secular politicians in a battle that increasingly appears to be a fight to the finish in which there can be no compromise. | 01/22/12 13:46:00 By - Roy Gutman

Afghanistan's Karzai met with insurgents' peace delegation

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he recently met with a peace delegation from an insurgent faction of the Islamic nationalist group Hezb-i-Islami that he hoped would have "productive results." | 01/21/12 15:22:00 By - Ali Safi

French troop deaths spark worry over Afghan training mission

The killings of four French troops Friday by an Afghan soldier they were training has renewed concerns — a decade into the training mission — that Afghans are growing increasingly disdainful of the U.S.-led coalition forces ostensibly there to help them and are striking back. | 01/20/12 18:37:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Ali Safi

S. Sudan to halt oil production over dispute with Sudan

South Sudan moved Friday to shut down its oil production, the latest development in an epic game of double dare that threatens not only South Sudan's economy but also that of its neighbor and antagonist, Sudan, just six months after the world heralded the peaceful split of the old Sudan with fanfare and hurrahs. | 01/20/12 17:32:00 By - Alan Boswell

A month out, expectations low for Yemen's presidential vote

After months of violent demonstrations, Yemen is just a few weeks away from a presidential election that will end, or at least is supposed to end, Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year hold on power. | 01/20/12 17:23:00 By - Adam Baron

Crime booms as Central Americans fear police switched sides

In a city that's just earned the title of the most dangerous in the Americas, few people dare go to the police with complaints. Rather, they view police officers with fear, scorn and disgust. | 01/20/12 16:06:00 By - Tim Johnson

U.N. asked to probe U.S. efforts to squelch Spain torture probe

Two legal rights groups on Thursday asked the United Nations to investigate allegations that Spanish and U.S. officials collaborated to quash criminal probes into whether the Bush administration authorized illegal killings and torture of terrorism suspects. | 01/19/12 18:54:00 By - Rachel Roubein

Iraq's Maliki accused of detaining hundreds of political opponents

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's security services have locked up more than 1,000 members of other political parties over the past several months, detaining many of them in secret locations with no access to legal counsel and using "brutal torture" to extract confessions, his chief political rival has charged. | 01/19/12 17:59:00 By - Roy Gutman, Sahar Issa and Laith Hammoudi

After a year of Arab upheaval, Islamists are biggest winners

In the year since the wave of revolts that brought down three Middle Eastern rulers and left two others tottering began, the ascension of the Islamists has emerged as the dominant narrative. The United States and other Western powers - along with Arab liberals and religious minorities - are watching with alarm as conservative Muslim politicians have filled the power vacuums left by the rebellions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. | 01/19/12 17:25:00 By - Hannah Allam

Rockets hit Turkey's embassy in Iraq amid rising acrimony

A rocket attack on Turkey's embassy in Baghdad this week has highlighted the rapid deterioration in relations between Turkey and Iraq, a development tied to Turkish criticism of the detention of opposition politicians by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. | 01/19/12 15:34:00 By - Sahar Issa

Bombings in southern Afghanistan leave 20 dead

At least 20 people have been killed in suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan, authorities said Thursday, including seven civilians who died when a bomber blew himself up near an airport used by the U.S.-led coalition. | 01/19/12 14:33:00 By - Ali Safi

Author who fled China recounts beatings for book critical of prime minister

When Yu Jie wrote a book in 2010 slamming Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabo as a cynical actor at the head of a heartless Communist Party, it was unknown how Beijing's authoritarian government might react. | 01/19/12 14:25:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Pakistan's Gilani says he won't pursue case against Zardari

Extending a battle of wills between Pakistan's government and its judiciary, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the Supreme Court on Thursday that he wouldn't bow to a court order targeting the country's president. | 01/19/12 09:55:36 By - Saeed Shah

Report on shooting spree finds deep mistrust between U.S., Afghan forces

An Air Force investigation into a shooting spree by an Afghan colonel that left nine U.S. military trainers dead last year found high levels of hostility between Afghan and American forces and major Afghan support for the shooter. | 01/19/12 01:56:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Honduras is test of new U.S. policy on gay rights

From U.N. chambers to the halls of the State Department, global pressure on countries to protect the rights of gay and transgender people is rising. | 01/19/12 01:42:00 By - Tim Johnson

Report: French judge wants to probe Guantanamo torture claims

A French judge is seeking U.S. permission to visit the prison camps here to investigate claims by former French inmates that they were tortured. The request is the third indication that international authorities have renewed their interest in the legality of Bush-era policies on the treatment of war-on-terror captives. | 01/19/12 01:09:41 By - Carol Rosenberg

Fate of U.S. effort to isolate Iran could rest with China

Most days, the announcement of an $8.5 billion joint venture oil deal between Saudi Arabia and China wouldn't raise eyebrows. Riyadh, after all, is China's largest supplier of oil. But with the United States pushing for an oil embargo against Iran, China's third-largest oil provider, the calculus has changed. | 01/19/12 01:00:00 By - Tom Lasseter and Kevin G. Hall

Copy of al Qaida magazine 'Inspire' found at Guantanamo

A copy of Al Qaida's fiery magazine Inspire somehow got inside the prison camps at Guantánamo, a prosecutor disclosed at the war court Wednesday. | 01/19/12 09:10:39 By - Carol Rosenberg

Analysts: U.S., Pakistan collaborating again on drone strikes

Two apparent U.S. drone attacks last week on militant targets in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan very likely signal the resumption of joint counterintelligence operations by the CIA and Pakistan's military spy agency, security analysts here said Monday. | 01/19/12 01:31:00 By - Tom Hussain

Porters are unheralded heroes of Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro

Up from the equatorial plains they climb, into a dripping rain forest, through a shrub-riddled wasteland and across a desolate alpine desert before finally making a nighttime trudge up the lonely ice-capped crater that's Africa's tallest peak. Every year, some 50,000 or so adventurous foreigners brave the oxygen-starved air atop Mount Kilimanjaro for the stunning dawn view of the hazy shapes and shadows from which they emerged just days before. The tourists, however, aren't the only ones who make the journey. | 01/19/12 01:55:00 By - Alan Boswell

Are the snows of Kilimanjaro returning? Guide says yes

One of Mount Kilimanjaro's most dramatic features is its breathtaking glaciers, which slither across its dormant volcanic plateau and down its crater slope in frigid shades of bluish-green. | 01/19/12 01:48:00 By - Alan Boswell

Spanish judge reopens Guantanamo torture probe

A Spanish judge on Friday re-launched an investigation into the alleged torture of detainees held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one day after a British authorities launched a probe into CIA renditions to Libya. | 01/19/12 01:44:00 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantánamo commander: Contractors read inmate lawyers' mail

In unprecedented war court testimony, the prison camps’ commander on Tuesday defended a three-tier system of classifying lawyers’ mail to alleged terrorists that sparked a defense lawyer’s boycott and is threatening to stall future war crimes trials. | 01/17/12 20:31:56 By - Carol Rosenberg

Jailed Cuban dissident Wilman Villar reportedly near death

A Cuban political prisoner is in a coma and near death from pneumonia he picked up when he refused to wear a prison uniform and went on a hunger strike, his wife said Monday. | 01/17/12 07:12:55 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Military lawyers blast Guantanamo mail search as violating rights, ethics

Military lawyers for Guantanamo detainees who could someday be put to death are accusing the new prison commander of censoring protected attorney-client documents, raising a new legal controversy that spotlights ongoing concern about the fairness of possible military trials. | 01/15/12 18:41:00 By - Carol Rosenberg

Critical week ahead for Pakistan's besieged government

Pakistan's political crisis, which pits its president against determined foes in the country's parliament, Supreme Court and military, is likely to reach fever pitch on Monday with a confidence vote scheduled in parliament and hearings scheduled in two critical court cases. | 01/15/12 16:17:00 By - Saeed Shah

Foundering of Italian cruise ship raises safety worries

The sinking of a major ship and the deaths of at least three passengers injects a new worry for those considering any vacation at sea. "Obviously there’s going to be that gut reaction, like after Sept. 11,’’ said Simon Duval, a South Florida-based agent with Expedia CruiseShipCenters. "I think there’s going to be a short-term hit to the industry…I pray it’s not long-term.’’ | 01/14/12 20:10:14 By - Douglas Hanks, Hannah Sampson and Jane Wooldridge

ElBaradei slams military as he quits Egypt presidential race

The prominent Egyptian presidential candidate and Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei made a surprise withdrawal from the race Saturday, dealing a blow to young supporters who'd counted on him to guard their revolution from the country's new military and Islamist leaders. | 01/14/12 15:43:00 By - Mohannad Sabry

Miffed Hugo Chavez says he'll close Venezuela's Miami consulate

President Hugo Chávez on Friday announced an "administrative shutdown" of the Venezuelan consulate in Miami, in response to the U.S. State Department’s decision to expel the consul in that diplomatic post, Livia Acosta, who had been accused of participating in an Iranian plot against the United States. | 01/14/12 10:55:45 By - Antonio María Delgado

Is Mexico City's newest monument a tribute to spirit or graft?

The newest addition to this city's skyline, a monument of steel and luminescent quartz that soars some 30 stories into the sky, is destined to "become an icon of our capital," says Mexican President Felipe Calderon. | 01/12/12 17:17:00 By - Tim Johnson

Video of Marines urinating on bodies no surprise, Afghans say

The Pentagon scrambled Thursday to assure Afghans that it would aggressively investigate a video that shows U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of three Afghans, while Afghans' reaction varied from outrage to resignation that the video merely reflected behavior that they think is typical of American troops. | 01/12/12 18:55:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Mansoor Ijaz says he'll testify in Pakistan's Memogate scandal

The controversial American businessman at the center of the legal case that threatens to bring down the Pakistani government vowed Thursday to fly to Islamabad and tell the court the "unaltered truth" in the so-called Memogate scandal. | 01/12/12 17:36:00 By - Saeed Shah

Some worry 'new' U.S. military focus on Asia is a muddle

The Obama administration pledge to shift American military strategy toward Asia overlooks a key fact: The United States never really dropped its focus on the region. But the current budget proposal might cut big-ticket items needed to increase its presence in Asia and counter China. | 01/12/12 15:22:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Tom Lasseter

Manning should face court martial over WikiLeaks secrets, officer rules

Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of providing hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the WikiLeaks website, should stand trial on all the charges that have been brought against him, the investigating officer who conducted a hearing into the charges has last month concluded. | 01/12/12 14:53:38 By -

New campaign for Yemen's activists: End khat use

For nearly a year, tens of thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets to call for an end to the 33-year-old rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. | 01/12/12 14:40:00 By - Adam Baron

What's ahead for Guantanamo camps in new decade?

Ten years ago, U.S. troops marched 20 men in chains off a military cargo plane at Guantanamo Bay to launch America’s war-on-terror experiment in offshore detention and justice. Now, the prison camps enter their second decade with death penalty tribunals on the horizon and President Barack Obama still struggling to find a formula for closure. | 01/12/12 09:35:59 By - Carol Rosenberg

Intelligence report: Taliban still hope to rule Afghanistan

A new top-secret U.S. intelligence assessment warns that Taliban leaders haven't abandoned their goal of reclaiming power and reimposing harsh Islamic rule on Afghanistan, raising doubts about the success of any peace deal that the Obama administration tries to broker between Kabul and the insurgents. | 01/12/12 01:25:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Another Iranian nuclear scientist killed; Israel blamed

An Iranian scientist working at a key nuclear facility in that country was killed Wednesday in Tehran, the latest act in what appears to be a widening covert effort to disrupt Iran's nuclear program. | 01/12/12 01:15:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

A Europe boycott of Iran oil would cap years of U.S. effort

The European Union appears on the verge of banning its member countries from buying Iranian oil, a move that would culminate a years-long behind-the-scenes campaign by two U.S. administrations to cripple that oil-rich nation's lifeblood industry. | 01/12/12 01:23:00 By - Kevin G. Hall

Pakistan speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying U.S.

With a decision to fast-track the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Iran, Pakistan is underscoring not only the energy needs of its flailing economy but also its growing estrangement from Washington. | 01/12/12 01:17:00 By - Tom Hussain

Ecuador conservation effort gets dragged into legal fight

One of Ecuador’s most ambitious conservation efforts is getting dragged into one of the world’s largest environmental lawsuits. | 01/12/12 01:27:03 By - Jim Wyss

Cuba's offshore oil drilling platform gets OK from Coast Guard, BSEE

U.S. Coast Guard and environmental safety officials have inspected and OK’d an offshore oil drilling platform headed to Cuba, under an unusual arrangement designed to allay concerns about a possible spill that could foul the U.S. coastline. | 01/12/12 06:51:56 By - Juan O. Tamayo

South Sudan rampage toll may be in thousands amid threats of genocide

Threats of genocide and ethnically charged rhetoric are roiling South Sudan's Jonglei state one week after a days-long rampage by a tribal militia forced 50,000 people from their homes and may have left thousands dead. | 01/12/12 01:00:00 By - Alan Boswell

U.S. probes video of marines urinating on dead Afghans

The Marine Corps said Wednesday that it was investigating the authenticity of a video that appears to show four uniformed Marines urinating on dead Afghans, potentially the latest example of U.S. troops treating those killed or captured on the battlefield as trophies. | 01/12/12 01:48:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Doomsday Clock one minute closer to doom

The world needs a wakeup call, says the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. By inching the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock — which symbolizes how close the world is to catastrophe — one minute closer to midnight (or world elimination) Tuesday, board members of the science organization said they hope political leaders will heed this call to action. | 01/10/12 19:18:00 By - Rachel Roubein

Syria's Assad slams protesters, Arab League in 2-hour speech

In his first public speech since June, Syrian President Bashar Assad showed no signs Tuesday that he was willing to compromise on his crackdown on anti-government protesters, promising an "iron hand" even as his country veers dangerously close to civil war after 10 months of protests and violence. | 01/10/12 17:37:00 By - Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry

Questions arise about how Haiti earthquake donations have been spent

Half the money world governments pledged to Haiti never showed up. Half the money American private donors raised for Haiti hasn’t been spent. And many millions went to things like gasoline, car rentals and salaries. | 01/10/12 06:58:17 By - Frances Robles

Ex-envoy at center of Pakistani scandal decries 'witch hunt'

Pakistan's former ambassador to Washington — the focus of a scandal that threatens to topple the government in Islamabad — said Monday that he was caught up in a "witch hunt" against democracy. | 01/09/12 17:37:00 By - Saeed Shah

Ex-rebel official hopeful about Libya's transition

As fighting among militias in Libya continues, the country's former finance and oil minister said Thursday that a strong presidential system was crucial to provide stability following the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi. | 01/05/12 17:56:00 By - Rachel Roubein

Pakistan's President Zardari fights back at moves to oust him

The Pakistani government has mounted a counterattack against moves by the country's military and Supreme Court that could result in what critics call a constitutional coup against President Asif Ali Zardari. | 01/05/12 16:39:00 By - Tom Hussain

In central China, shadowy sex case ensnares local officials

Lured to a drab spa on the edge of an industrial park in central China, high school students were forced either to strip naked or to have sex — accounts vary — and their naked bodies were photographed. The pictures allegedly constituted a threat: Bring your classmates to the club, or your nude image will be passed around the streets of Chengguan. | 01/05/12 01:43:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Egyptian activists worry Islamist-led parliament will go easy on military

Egyptians completed voting Wednesday in the final round of parliamentary elections, with little suspense over the results: When final tallies are announced Jan. 13, Islamists are assured a majority through the steamroller parties of the Muslim Brotherhood and the more fundamentalist Salafists. | 01/05/12 01:54:00 By - Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry

Power struggle could further destabilize Pakistan

Pakistan's powerful army wants President Asif Ali Zardari gone, but it has ruled out staging a coup, and instead is hoping for a legal ruling that could lead to Zardari's impeachment by the country's parliament, analysts and military insiders say. | 01/05/12 01:23:00 By - Tom Hussain

Divisions emerge between Islamists in Egypt

Islamist parties are the top two vote-getters after the first two phases of elections for Egypt's new parliament, but despite fears of a hard-line coalition, serious divisions have erupted between the two main Islamist groups before the parliament has even been seated. | 01/05/12 01:07:00 By - Mohannad Sabry

Militia's rampage in South Sudan reveals weakness of U.N. mission

Four hundred United Nations peacekeepers and 800 South Sudanese government troops were holding positions Wednesday in a key town in South Sudan's Jonglei state after a days-long rampage by an 8,000-strong marauding tribal militia left dozens dead and forced as many as 50,000 people to flee their homes. | 01/04/12 17:29:00 By - Alan Boswell

Possible showdown with Iran sends oil prices soaring

The possibility of a confrontation between the United States and Iran appeared to grow Tuesday after the Obama administration dismissed an Iranian warning against moving a U.S. aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf, saying the deployment was crucial to "the security and stability of the region." | 01/03/12 13:23:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Kevin G. Hall

Israelis, Palestinians meet in Jordan for 1st time in a year

Israeli and Palestinian officials met Tuesday in Jordan's capital, Amman, in the first attempt at peace talks in more than a year. As expected, there were no breakthroughs. | 01/03/12 14:54:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Militants agree to truce with Pakistan, unite against NATO

Pakistani Islamist militants on Sunday pledged to cease their four-year insurgency against Pakistani security forces, and join the Taliban's war against NATO troops in Afghanistan. | 01/02/12 15:16:00 By - Tom Hussain

Egypt crackdown escalates, with raids on 17 rights groups

Egyptian authorities on Thursday raided the offices of 17 domestic and international human rights and pro-democracy organizations, including several that receive U.S. government funding, in a sharp intensification of the military's crackdown that recalled the tactics of the country's ousted authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak. | 12/29/11 19:00:00 By - Mohannad Sabry and Jonathan S. Landay

Iranian dissident group in Iraq agrees to quit Camp Ashraf

The diplomatic standoff over a group of Iranian dissidents in Iraq appeared to be resolved Wednesday when the dissidents agreed to abandon their camp north of Baghdad and move to a former U.S. Army base, where the United Nations will process their applications for refugee status in Europe and elsewhere. | 12/28/11 18:23:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iranian oil threat is mostly bluster, say observers

Amid an escalating war of words between the United States and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. and European officials expressed confidence that there was no imminent threat to the passageway through which some 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil travels daily. | 12/28/11 17:09:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay

Extremists' jeers at 8-year-old the last straw for Israelis

Thousands of Israelis poured into this Jerusalem suburb Tuesday night in a protest against religious extremists who've targeted women and enforced strict division of the sexes in public life. | 12/27/11 17:05:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

India, Pakistan renew talks to avert nuclear clash

South Asia's nuclear neighbors, India and Pakistan, tentatively agreed Tuesday to renew an agreement that aims to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war. | 12/27/11 15:03:00 By - Tom Hussain

Tensions rise between Pakistan's civilian leaders and its military

A destabilizing confrontation between Pakistan's fledgling democratic government and its powerful military is evolving into a debate over the country's controversial nuclear weapons program. | 12/26/11 14:07:00 By - Tom Hussain

Dysfunctional banking sector helps keep Iraq in economic shambles

Iraq lacks the banking infrastructure to grow out of its financial mess and the political will to undertake dramatic economic reform. There are no electronic funds transfers for payroll or bills and almost no checking accounts or credit cards. ATMs are few and far between. There are no home improvement loans and few mortgages. For most Iraqis, banks serve only as a safety deposit box. | 12/25/11 00:01:00 By - Roy Gutman

Iraq arrests four security officials following Baghdad bombings

The Iraqi government has arrested four of its own security officers in connection with a devastating wave of car bombs that killed 65 and wounded more than 200 civilians in Baghdad on Thursday, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki disclosed Saturday. | 12/24/11 16:41:08 By - Roy Gutman and Laith Hammoudi

Pakistan's military rejects Pentagon findings, denies coup plot

Pakistan's military on Friday ratcheted up tensions with the U.S., rejecting the findings of a Pentagon investigation into the friendly fire deaths of 25 Pakistani soldiers. The rejection came amid increasing political instability in Pakistan over allegations that the president, Asif Zardari, had in May sought American assistance to avert a military takeover. | 12/23/11 17:32:00 By - Tom Hussain

Egypt's women protest despite brutal military attacks

This week, thousands of Egyptian women protested in Tahrir Square against military generals who silently watched their soldiers lead assaults on female protesters. The female protest came despite an apology published on the official Facebook page of the ruling military council, a failed attempt to defuse public anger that backfired. | 12/23/11 15:42:00 By - Mohannad Sabry

U.S. says both sides erred in deadly Pakistani border incident

A U.S. military investigation has blamed poor coordination between American and Pakistani forces for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a friendly fire incident along the Afghanistan border in November, the Pentagon said Thursday. | 12/22/11 17:31:00 By - Tom Hussain

AP opens North Korea news bureau, but celebration will wait

The Associated Press was ready to formally dedicate a new bureau in North Korea's capital this week, giving AP the first permanent bureau operated by a Western news organization in the reclusive country. With the party canceled on news of Kim Jong Il's death, the bureau staff got right to work covering the story. | 12/22/11 16:18:00 By - Curtis Tate

Palestinian residents of Bethlehem fear Israeli expansion

Israel plans, within the coming months, to construct a circle of Jewish settlements around the city as well as to complete work on a section of the imposing Israeli-West Bank security barrier that essentially will surround Bethlehem. | 12/22/11 15:51:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Iraq's Maliki rebuffs Biden, signals move to Shiite rule

Rebuffing a plea by the Obama administration, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki signaled Wednesday that he's ready to gradually drop his key partner party, the largely Sunni Iraqiya bloc, and move toward a government run by the country's Shiite majority at the expense of minority Sunnis and Kurds. | 12/21/11 18:41:00 By - Roy Gutman

China's rebellious villagers halt protest after apparent intervention

A tense standoff between rebellious villagers and local officials in the fishing town of Wukan on China's eastern coast appeared to come to an end on Wednesday, though the tentative agreement did not untangle allegations of official corruption and land grabs. Stretching more than a week, the takeover of Wukan from police and officials was arguably the most dramatic example of social unrest in a year marked by bursts of tumult around the country. | 12/21/11 16:38:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Iraqi VP denies terror charges as sectarian dispute continues

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al Hashimi struck back at the Shiite Muslim-led government Tuesday, dismissing official allegations that he had masterminded multiple assassinations of security officials as based on fabricated evidence. | 12/20/11 18:45:00 By - Roy Gutman

Latest crisis tests survival skills of Pakistan's President Zardari

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has confounded predictions of his downfall throughout his term in office, but even as the U.S. ally unexpectedly returned to the country this week, many still believe that his demise is close at hand. | 12/20/11 17:54:00 By - Saeed Shah

Rebel leader George Athor reportedly killed in South Sudan

The aging rebel, George Athor, was intercepted by a military patrol near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and killed, said South Sudan military spokesman Philip Aguer. Reports that Athor was killed in a firefight could not be confirmed. | 12/20/11 17:10:00 By - Alan Boswell

Iraq orders vice president's arrest after TV 'confessions'

Iraq's Shiite Muslim-dominated government ordered the arrest Monday night of Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, a Sunni, after televising the reputed confessions of three bodyguards that implicated him in a string of assassinations of leading Shiite military and government officials. | 12/19/11 19:10:00 By - Roy Gutman

Egyptian military defends crackdown on demonstrators

The Egyptian military on Monday defended its harsh crackdown on protesters, saying soldiers are trying to protect government buildings, and it accused private news organizations of colluding with those it says are attacking government property. | 12/19/11 18:27:00 By - Mohannad Sabry

North Korea, in transition, could draw further into shell

With the passing of North Korean strongman Kim Jong Il, experts said Monday, the nuclear-armed nation is likely to retreat into greater seclusion from the world while the political transition sorts itself out. North Koreans are as unfamiliar with the successor, Kim Jong Un, as the rest of the world is. | 12/19/11 16:45:00 By - Tim Johnson and Lesley Clark

Fishing — and normal life — on hold in Wukan, China

Locals say that after they fought off a police advance on Dec. 11 and closed off the town to village security forces and Chinese Communist Party officials, government boats chased the fisherman from open waters into a harbor of the South China Sea. While there's no blockade to be seen, the fear of the unknown is enough to keep most of the boats moored. | 12/19/11 14:14:00 By - Tom Lasseter

North Korea's Kim Jong Il dies at 69

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the mercurial strongman who styled himself as a "Dear Leader" while ruling over an impoverished police state, died at 69, according to North Korean state media. | 12/18/11 23:15:11 By - Barbara Demick and John M. Glionna

As U.S. troops exit, Iraq's political crisis deepens

Iraq's political crisis deepened Sunday as Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the country's vice president off of a plane and had him held temporarily at Baghdad airport, on suspicion that members of his security detail took part in a string of assassinations. | 12/18/11 17:30:00 By - Roy Gutman

Between jubilation and foreboding in Wukan, China

Perched close to the glistening waters of an inlet of the South China Sea, with a large tile fountain cascading from its doorstep, the Haiyun Holiday Hotel cuts a grand figure on the Wukan coastline. | 12/18/11 15:32:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Crime sends chills through retiree oasis in Mexico

More than a half-century ago, Americans began flocking to the shores of Lake Chapala in central Mexico, which Life Magazine once extolled as the ideal place to "live and loaf." | 12/18/11 15:13:00 By - Tim Johnson

As U.S. departs Iraq, it leaves two allies that aren't speaking

More than five years have passed since Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah last received Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al Maliki. The Saudi monarch views Maliki as untrustworthy and, even worse, "an Iranian agent." | 12/18/11 00:01:00 By - Roy Gutman

Battles rage as Egypt counts ballots

Egyptian soldiers hurled rocks, cement bricks and glass plates at protesters as the two sides battled in a second straight day of post-election violence that's left at least nine people dead and some 300 injured, according to official figures. | 12/17/11 17:17:00 By - Mohannad Sabry

NATO ends Iraq mission as drama unfolds in Green Zone

NATO closed down its small training mission here Saturday even as there was high drama in Baghdad's international zone, as troops and tanks surrounded the homes of three prominent Sunni politicians | 12/17/11 16:28:00 By - Roy Gutman

For Palestinians, prison time is a badge of honor

As Israel prepares to release 550 Palestinians on Sunday in the second stage of a prisoner exchange deal with the Islamist Hamas movement, many Palestinians already are calling it an empty gesture, because historically prisoners whom the Israelis have freed are likely to be rearrested on similar charges. | 12/16/11 17:10:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Villagers take a stand in Wukan, China — but for how long?

Lin Zulian and Yang Semao are wanted men. The mayor of the city that oversees this farming and fishing village has publicly named the pair as main agitators of Wukan's recent rebellion against the local government. Such a threat would terrify most Chinese in a nation infamous for police state tactics. But on Friday morning, both men stood in front of a crowd of thousands here and railed against local corruption. | 12/16/11 15:17:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Last U.S. base in Iraq prepares to turn out the lights

The young Army officer who's in charge of logistics at the last U.S. base in Iraq is a Sudanese refugee, one of the "lost boys" who fled their war-ravaged homeland in the mid-1990s. His staff sergeant survived a deadly improvised-explosives attack during his third tour here in 2005, then returned for two more. When they and the five other members of their team process the final load of equipment from what was once a network of more than 500 American bases, the nearly nine-year U.S. occupation and military presence in Iraq will be history. | 12/15/11 18:28:00 By - Roy Gutman

Jewish attacks prompt Israeli debate: Who's a terrorist?

A young man calling himself Yehudi Tzadik — "righteous Jew" — picked up a rock and rolled it around in his hand, as if considering pitching it at a police car parked nearby. | 12/15/11 16:28:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

In rebellious Wukan, China, a rare sight: No authorities

It's the Chinese Communist Party's nightmare in miniature: Locals stage protests against their land being taken away by shady real estate deals, police respond with heavy-handed tactics and suddenly, with years of frustration and allegations of official corruption bottled up, an entire village erupts in open revolt. | 12/15/11 14:41:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Angry Pakistan to impose tax on NATO military supplies

Pakistan is planning to tax supplies for U.S.-led coalition troops that are shipped through its territory to land-locked Afghanistan, officials revealed, in retaliation for the recent deaths of its soldiers in a "friendly fire" incident on the border. | 12/14/11 18:01:00 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan's President Zardari to leave hospital, but return unclear

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will be discharged from hospital in Dubai on Thursday, but it remained unclear when he will return home, according to his aides. | 12/14/11 17:06:00 By - Saeed Shah

In Egyptian canal city, voters lean toward Islamists

Sheikh Hafez Salama, 86, won't say which party he voted for Wednesday in the second round of Egypt's parliamentary elections, but it's a safe bet that he picked fellow Islamists. | 12/14/11 15:11:00 By - Hannah Allam

A second Iraqi province seeks autonomy from Baghdad

A split provincial council in Diyala has signed a request for the province to be granted regional status, a first step in seeking greater autonomy from the Baghdad government, council members said Tuesday. | 12/13/11 15:13:00 By - Laith Hammoudi

Cuba shows U.S. its response plans in case of oil spill

As Cuba prepares to embark on a new round of exploratory offshore drilling, U.S. officials are slightly more enlightened about the island nation's plans in the event of a catastrophic oil spill on the scale of last year's Deepwater Horizon explosion. | 12/13/11 07:59:58 By - Erika Bolstad

Egypt's military rulers to decide fate of Guantanamo returnee

Adel el Gazzar emerged from his eight-year detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with one leg, no U.S. charges against him and zero chance of returning to his native Egypt, where he was sure to have been locked up again by then-President Hosni Mubarak's regime. | 12/11/11 13:39:00 By - Hannah Allam

War forever changed lives of six Iraqis we knew well

On June 28, 2004, the day the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq officially was dissolved, our Baghdad bureau held a staff dinner to mark the beginning of the country's path to self-determination and democracy. | 12/11/11 00:01:00 By - Hannah Allam

Huge numbers of Iraqis still adrift within the country

Of all the problems that the U.S. troop withdrawal won't affect in Iraq, what to do about the number of internally displaced people looms the largest. As many as 2 million Iraqis — about 6 percent of the country's estimated population of more than 31 million — are thought to have been forced from the cities and towns where they once lived and are housed in circumstances that feel temporary and makeshift. | 12/11/11 00:01:00 By - David Enders

Noriega, 'old and tired,' heads back to Panama cell

Twenty-two years after American GIs invaded Panama and spirited away dictator Manuel Noriega, the former strongman will return on Sunday to a jail cell in his homeland. | 12/08/11 17:43:00 By - Tim Johnson

Israeli travel ban cuts studies short for Palestinians

For more than a decade, Emal Abu Aisha has run a women's center in the Gaza Strip that provides women with training and classes to improve their education. But Abu Aisha, 42, said she'd been denied that opportunity herself. | 12/08/11 14:33:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Video: Egypt's uprising loses steam

The numbers of protesters in Tahrir Square have dwindled. The first round of parliamentary elections took some of the steam out of Egypt's second uprising. (Video by Jihan Hafiz, Real News Network) | 12/07/11 19:15:26 By -

Egypt's military rulers to keep most powers after election

Egypt's military will retain broad executive powers, help shape the framing of a new constitution and keep its vast financial holdings hidden even after an elected Parliament is seated, one of the ruling generals told foreign journalists Wednesday. | 12/07/11 18:04:00 By - Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry

Yemen forms unity government, but Saleh's fate still unclear

Yemeni Vice President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi formed a new, 35-member unity government, state media reported Wednesday, a key step in a Western-backed agreement to secure President Ali Abdullah Saleh's exit from power while putting an end to months of demonstrations and unrest. | 12/07/11 16:41:00 By - Adam Baron

Roadside attack in southern Afghanistan kills 19 on bus

At least 19 Afghan civilians were killed Wednesday when their minibus struck a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province, provincial officials said. The dead included seven women and five children. | 12/07/11 16:32:00 By - Ali Safi

U.S. commandos fan out in remote Africa to help find brutal rebels

The U.S. military has dropped its first set of boots into the tropical overgrowth of central Africa, one of the most inaccessible areas of the world, to help fight a brutal rogue rebel group that's known for abducting children and mutilating the faces of victims. | 12/07/11 16:10:00 By - Alan Boswell

Pakistani president hospitalized; aides say he won't resign

Pakistan's embattled president, Asif Ali Zardari, is determined to resist pressure to quit, his close aides said Wednesday, after Zardari's sudden hospitalization in Dubai ignited feverish speculation about him resigning. | 12/07/11 15:48:00 By - Saeed Shah

Mexico blames gangsters for casino tragedy, but clears others

Investigators probing a firebombing of a Mexican casino last summer that left 52 people dead said Tuesday that gangsters were the sole cause of the tragedy, clearing safety inspectors and the casino owner of any criminal negligence. | 12/06/11 18:24:00 By - Tim Johnson

Rare attack on Afghan Shiites kills dozens

At least 55 people were killed and scores wounded Tuesday in a suicide attack that targeted Shiite Muslim worshippers in Kabul, raising the specter of sectarian violence even as the United States searches for a way out of the Afghan war. | 12/06/11 18:01:00 By - Ali Safi

Western nations now on the sidelines at Sudan talks

Last week, while African leaders toiled behind closed doors at a luxury hotel to try to prevent renewed war between Sudan and South Sudan, U.S. and other Western diplomats huddled in the lobby waiting for updates. | 12/06/11 17:25:00 By - Alan Boswell

Chinese suspect Beijing's air more polluted than reported

Sitting on a park bench in downtown Beijing on Tuesday afternoon, Wang Kuang paused to consider the air in front of his face. The sky in Beijing is often a murky color, something between gray and brown. But the past few days have been particularly bad: hundreds of flights canceled, sections of highway temporarily closed and entire buildings seemingly vanished from the horizon. | 12/06/11 14:56:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Old Mubarak allies fare poorly in first Egyptian vote

In a symbolic victory for Egypt's revolutionaries, results from the first round of parliamentary elections show a popular rejection of any vestiges of deposed President Hosni Mubarak's regime, with his old political allies trailing far behind Islamist and liberal blocs. | 12/05/11 17:49:00 By - Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry

Iran explosions prompt speculation of secret attacks

A series of mishaps at Iranian nuclear facilities and weapons sites may be part of a covert organized attack on Iran's nuclear weapons program, according to Western intelligence officials. | 12/05/11 15:15:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Insurgents target Iraqi pilgrims ahead of U.S. withdrawal

Insurgents in Iraq targeted Shiite Muslim pilgrims on their way to the sacred city of Karbala to commemorate a religious holiday on Monday, killing at least eight and wounding 49, security officials said. | 12/05/11 15:06:00 By - Sahar Issa

Shell Oil's Nigeria operation plagued with spills, violence

Ask almost any environmental activist about Shell and he'll point to Nigeria, in West Africa. Environmentalists say decades of oil production have left the Niger Delta one of the most polluted regions in the world. Shell is Nigeria's biggest operator, with more than 50 years of oil production there, and it's a main target of activists' wrath. | 12/05/11 11:20:52 By - Lisa Demer

Latin American, Caribbean nations form new bloc

The hemisphere formed a powerful new bloc of nations Saturday that stretches from Chile to Mexico, includes one out of every 10 people on the planet and is seeing surging growth and economic stability in a time of global turmoil. | 12/05/11 07:14:10 By - Jim Wyss

Iran claims it shot down U.S. drone

Iran's military shot down an unmanned American spy plane over its eastern territory, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Sunday. | 12/04/11 15:59:00 By - David Goldstein

Saudi dissidents turn to YouTube to air their frustrations

The Arab Spring has yet to touch down on the sands of Saudi Arabia, and advocates face an uphill battle mobilizing an apathetic general public that seems to accept the country's all-powerful monarchy. Now, however, young Saudi videographers are using YouTube to air a series of video reports that reveal the underside of life in the world's biggest oil producer. | 12/04/11 14:53:00 By - Roy Gutman

Family marks second year in Cuban prison for Alan Gross

On the sidewalk in front of the Cuban Interests Section, on a street that runs straight to the White House, dozens of people have been gathering each Monday for the past month to demand the release of an American who was imprisoned in Cuba two years ago. It's impossible to know whether the Cuban diplomats inside hear the pleas. | 12/04/11 00:01:00 By - Erika Bolstad

Few grand hopes for major Afghan meeting

A high-level international conference opens Monday in Germany where representatives of more than 90 countries and organizations gather to discuss the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign military forces. | 12/03/11 16:07:00 By - Ali Safi

As expected, Islamists take lead in Egypt's first voting round

Islamists appeared poised to play a leading role in Egypt's first Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, according to partial election results released Friday from the first round of polling earlier this week. | 12/02/11 18:45:00 By - Hannah Allam and Mohannad Sabry

Battered Europe looks to Brazil, which has its own problems

The prospect of Brazilian aid to Europe offers the latest indication that the financial world as Americans have known it has been turned on its head. Developed nations are producing financial crisis and political paralysis while emerging markets are widely seen as sources of uplift and stability. | 12/02/11 17:19:00 By - Vinod Sreeharsha

Pakistan orders troops to return fire if attacked on Afghan border

Pakistan's top military commander has issued orders to the country's troops to return fire should they come under attack again from U.S.-led coalition forces in a move likely to increase tensions after last week's American-led raid on two border outposts that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. | 12/02/11 09:22:24 By - Saeed Shah

Egypt's parliament isn't Muslim Brotherhood's first win this year

With results of the first round of parliamentary polling due Friday, Egyptians are preparing for what partial tallies show will be a sweeping win for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political force that was the archenemy of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. | 12/01/11 18:44:00 By - Hannah Allam

As U.S. troops leave Iraq, what is the legacy of eight years of war?

Think for a moment about the emotional seesaw of someone who has lost a loved one in Iraq and hears that the war is about to end. At first, there is relief: Americans will finally stop dying in a distant desert. Then an indescribable sadness, because it comes too late. | 12/01/11 00:01:00 By - David Goldstein

First suicide blast since '07 hit Iraq's restricted Green Zone

An explosion Monday in Baghdad's Green Zone that Iraqi officials at first attributed to a rocket that landed harmlessly in a parking lot was in fact a suicide car bomb that detonated at the entrance to the parliament building and killed five people, officials revealed Tuesday. | 12/01/11 17:32:00 By - Sahar Issa

China wonders about reason for Clinton's Myanmar trip

As Hillary Clinton visited Myanmar on Wednesday, the neighbors were watching closely. The trip to the usually closed-off nation, the first by a U.S. secretary of state in more than half a century, boosted suspicions in China that the United States is pursuing a strategy of encirclement to blunt China's rise. | 12/01/11 01:14:00 By - Tom Lasseter

Election shows Islamists truly are Egypt's best-organized force

It rained here on election day, but the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party was prepared: Its election workers, sometimes a half-dozen men or more at each polling station, sported matching neon yellow raincoats and baseball caps bearing the party logo. | 12/01/11 01:27:00 By - David Enders

Mexico's top 2 crime gangs engaged in turf war

Mexico's two most powerful criminal gangs are locked in a titanic battle for control of the country's heartland in a struggle that's redrawn Mexico's map of violence. | 12/01/11 01:08:00 By - Tim Johnson

Yemen's first post-Saleh vote won't be much of a contest

Yemen's new prime minister said Sunday that both the ruling party and the country's largest opposition coalition would nominate the country's current vice president to be their candidate in the upcoming election to pick a successor to President Ali Abdullah Saleh. | 12/01/11 01:52:00 By - Adam Baron