DAMASCUS, Syria - Two American journalists whose disappearance prompted a U.S. Embassy alert and a wide search turned up in Syrian custody Thursday after being detained while trying to sneak into the country with smugglers, Syrian officials said.
ACRE, Israel - Arabs and Jews traded blows and threw rocks in this northern Israeli city on Thursday, in a second day of sectarian violence that marred the somber Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed a prominent member of Muqtada al-Sadr's political movement Thursday, raising fears of new internal Shiite bloodshed ahead of regional elections expected in January.
MOSCOW - The financial crisis has irreparably damaged the image of the U.S. as the leader of the free world and the global economy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
VIENNA, Austria - North Korea moved closer Thursday to relaunching its nuclear arms program, announcing that it wants to reactivate the facility that produced its atomic bomb and banning U.N. inspectors from the site.
MOSCOW - Moscow on Thursday accused NATO and the United Nations of secretly forging an agreement that tightens their cooperation without informing Russia, a U.N. Security Council member whose relations with NATO are badly strained.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A Chinese Muslim locked up at Guantanamo Bay may soon be granted an improbable wish: To move to the United States.
MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday unveiled plans for 53 billion pesos ($4.4 billion) in emergency spending on roads, schools, hospitals and an oil refinery next year to help Mexico combat the world financial crisis.
TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexican authorities said Wednesday that 16 people were killed in 24 hours in the northern state across the U.S. border from California.
LONDON (AFP) - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir rejected the allegations of war crimes against him as "made up" and said mass rape "does not exist" in Darfur, in an interview broadcast here Thursday.
DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) - Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, current chairman of the African Union, expressed concern Thursday that the global financial crisis may curtail foreign aid to the continent.
LONDON (Reuters) - Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said Thursday that war crimes allegations against him were fabricated and the people would decide in elections next year if the country's rulers were criminals.
NEW DELHI - The Dalai Lama's spokesman says the Tibetan spiritual leader has been hospitalized in New Delhi.
VIENNA, Austria - North Korea moved closer Thursday to relaunching its nuclear arms program, announcing that it wants to reactivate the facility that produced its atomic bomb and banning U.N. inspectors from the site.
MALE, Maldives - Maumoon Abdul Gayoom celebrated his top showing Thursday in the Maldives' first democratic election, but the nation's longtime ruler failed to win a majority and will now face his chief nemesis in a runoff.
TORONTO (Reuters) - The main index of the Toronto Stock Exchange plunged almost 5 percent on Thursday as mounting gloom over the state of the economy and the U.S. financial sector sent investors fleeing the market in a broad rout.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canada's Afghanistan mission has cost much more than publicly stated, a government report estimated on Thursday, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged troops will stay until 2011 no matter who wins next week's Canadian election.
RICHMOND, British Columbia (Reuters) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper, battered over his response to the worldwide financial crisis, acknowledged on Thursday he could lose the October 14 election that he had seemed set to win handily only two weeks ago.
SYDNEY, Australia - Qantas Airways said Thursday it will financially compensate all passengers who were on board a plane that made a terrifying plunge this week, tossing people around the cabin and injuring dozens.
PERTH, Australia (AFP) - A computer glitch may have caused a Qantas jet to plunge mid-flight, an investigator said Wednesday as passengers told how they were slammed against the cabin roof in the terrifying drama.
SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian Navy has detained 17 suspected asylum seekers at sea just a week after a boatload of Afghans, Iranians and Indonesians was intercepted off the country's coast, officials said Tuesday.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - This volcanic island near the Arctic Circle is on the brink of becoming the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financial meltdown.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for his poetic adventure and "sensual ecstasy."
DAMASCUS, Syria - Two American journalists whose disappearance prompted a U.S. Embassy alert and a wide search turned up in Syrian custody Thursday after being detained while trying to sneak into the country with smugglers, Syrian officials said...
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi foreign minister said Tuesday it will require "bold political decisions" to resolve the major issue standing in the way of a deal allowing American troops to remain here next year — who would try U.S. troops accused of crimes.
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran forced an aircraft carrying Hungarian military officials to land after it entered its airspace, Hungary's Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The plane was allowed to continue to Afghanistan after it was determined the entry was accidental.
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish warplanes bombed suspected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey early Tuesday in retaliation for an attack that killed 17 soldiers, the Turkish military said.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Finance Minister Alistair Darling will announce a rescue package for the UK banking system on Wednesday and a government source said it was likely to include public money being injected into banks.
VIENNA, Austria - Powerful far-right politician Joerg Haider has set up a holding facility in the remote mountains of southern Austria for asylum seekers suspected as criminals, saying they need to be isolated to protect the people in the area.
Some analysts say the case-by-case approach of national governments is undermining confidence rather than bolstering it
VERACRUZ, Mexico - Tropical Storm Marco roared ashore on Mexico's Gulf coast with near-hurricane force winds on Tuesday, prompting a shutdown of some oil platforms.
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's powerful drug cartels are buying drugs directly from Colombia's main rebel group, a senior Colombian defense official said Tuesday at a hemispheric meeting on crime.
MEXICO CITY - The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Tropical Storm Marco is hitting land north of Mexico's Veracruz port on the Gulf coast.
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - The UN human rights chief Tuesday urged South Africa to do more to stop xenophobic violence, as Amnesty International said officials had failed to help foreigners displaced by the attacks.
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday calling on all countries with a stake in maritime safety off Somalia to send naval ships and military aircraft to confront growing piracy there.
NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - Police in military-ruled Mauritania clashed Tuesday with protesters supporting ousted president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, as the African Union urged the junta to reinstate the elected leader.
TOKYO - North Korea has fired a short-range missile into the Yellow Sea, media reports said Tuesday.
BEIJING - Lawyers advising the families of children sickened in China's tainted milk scandal said Tuesday they are facing growing official pressure to withdraw from the cases.
SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea has fired two short-range missiles into international waters in the Yellow Sea as part of a routine military drill, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said early Wednesday, quoting a defence source.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The leader of Canada's main opposition party, Stephane Dion, said on Tuesday he would consider following the lead of other countries in raising the insurance limit on banking deposits.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The history of Afghanistan demonstrates that foreign troops cannot stay there indefinitely in an attempt to completely suppress all insurgency, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The slide in the polls for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives has been so steep as voter worry over the state of the economy has heightened that the possibility of his losing the upcoming general election is now being raised.
PERTH, Australia (AFP) - Thirty-six passengers and crew were injured, some seriously, in a mid-air drama that forced a Qantas jetliner to make an emergency landing, the Australian carrier and police said on Tuesday.
SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian Navy has detained 17 suspected asylum seekers at sea just a week after a boatload of Afghans, Iranians and Indonesians was intercepted off the country's coast, officials said Tuesday.
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australians who sound like crocodile hunter Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee actor Paul Hogan could soon be a relic of the past, a report said on Sunday.
KATMANDU, Nepal - Hindu and Buddhist priests chanted sacred hymns and cascaded flowers and grains of rice over a 3-year-old girl who was appointed a living goddess in Nepal on Tuesday.
NAIROBI, Kenya - The American author of a controversial book accusing Barack Obama of seething with "black rage" and of being unfit for the U.S. presidency was kicked out of Kenya on Tuesday.
JERUSALEM - The Russians are coming to downtown Jerusalem, reclaiming ownership of a landmark with the approval of the Israeli government, just as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visits Moscow to try to iron out serious policy differences between the two countries.