World News

An aircraft heading to the Canary Islands crashed on take off at a Madrid airport Wednesday reportedly killing at least 40 people, officials said.

NATO agreed after U.S. pressure on Tuesday to freeze regular contacts with Russia until Moscow had withdrawn its troops from Georgia in line with a peace deal.

Nepal's Supreme Court has ordered the government to ensure basic health care and education for virgin girls worshipped as "living goddesses" in a centuries-old tradition in the Himalayan nation.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has promised what he called a shattering blow to anyone threatening Russian citizens.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation Monday, ending an eight-year tenure that opponents said was hampering the country's labored return to democracy.

Flooding from Tropical Storm Fay killed four people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and authorities warned Saturday that the storm could reach hurricane strength as it barrels toward Cuba.

A group of American Christians who had more than 300 Bibles confiscated by Chinese officials when they arrived in China is refusing to leave the airport until they get the books back, their leader said Monday.

Even as Russia pledged to begin withdrawing its forces from neighboring Georgia on Monday, American officials said the Russian military had been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia, a step that appeared intended to tighten its hold on the breakaway territory.

Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from the province of Abkhazia had taken over 13 villages in Georgia and a power plant.

Florida's governor declared an emergency for the state Saturday due to the threat of Tropical Storm Fay, which forecasters say could bring hurricane-force winds to the Florida Keys as soon as Monday.

China's government estimates it will cost $147 billion to rebuild from the massive earthquake that struck the central part of the country in May, according to government media.

An agreement that will allow the United States to install a missile defense battery in Poland exposes the ex-communist nation to an attack, a Russian general said Friday.

A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.

The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.

Faced with desertions by his political supporters and the neutrality of the Pakistani military, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, an important ally of the United States, is expected to resign in the next few days rather than face impeachment charges, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats said Thursday.

Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, "dead zones" with too little oxygen for life are expanding in the world's oceans.

"We have to realize that hypoxia is not a local problem," said Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "It is a global problem and it has severe consequences for ecosystems."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that Moscow should face unspecified consequences for Russia's "aggressive posture" in the crisis-addled former Soviet republic of Georgia, but that the Pentagon ...

Russia's foreign minister declared Thursday that the world "can forget about" Georgia's territorial integrity, and American and Georgian officials said Russia appeared to be targeting military infrastructure — including radars and patrol boats at a Black Sea naval base and oil hub.

Evidence suggests terrorist groups may have been involved in a series of recent attacks that killed dozens of people in China's Muslim territory of Xinjiang, the foreign ministry said.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday sought reconciliation with the ruling coalition that dealt another blow to the embattled leader as a third provincial assembly demanded his impeachment.

Five gunmen armed with assault rifles attacked a U.S. aid organization vehicle in a village near Kabul Wednesday, killing three aid workers, two of them Canadian, and leaving their white SUV pocked with hundreds of bullet holes.