Global View
President Barack Obama has extended partial federal benefits to same-sex partners of US government workers, in what he said was a historic step towards equality for gays and lesbians.
Iran's electoral watchdog said on Tuesday it is ready to recount the presidential ballots if it finds irregularities in the disputed election which returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's keynote speech on Middle East peace this week received massive support from the Israeli public but they do not think it will further its aim, a poll showed on Tuesday.
Yemen said six of the nine foreigners kidnapped last week during a picnic in the northern Saada province are alive, and security forces are hunting the captors, the official Saba news agency reported.
Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of Israel's blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated "like animals."
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's son and successor Kim Jong-Un has been sent on a secret diplomatic mission to the Chinese capital of Beijing, Japanese media reports suggest.
A coal mine exploded in Indonesia's West Sumatra province on Tuesday, killing nine people and trapping at least 33 others underground, according to latest information of the local disaster management agency. 10 people were seriously injured in the...
Peru to revoke laws after Amazon clashes
Peru's Prime Minister Yehude Simon said Monday he would ask parliament to revoke controversial decrees on foreign investment in the Amazon region that indigenous groups say impacts their claims on land.
Iran bans anti-Ahmadinejad protests
Iran's government has banned a rally by supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, amid growing unrest over last week's presidential poll.
Post mortems show Air France Flight 447 passengers were dead before plunging into the Atlantic
The search for bodies and remnants of a lost Air France airliner enters its third and possibly final week Monday with the focus now on locating the "black box" recorders that could hold the key to its plunge into the Atlantic. A total of 49 bodies...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could accept a peace agreement with a "demilitarized Palestinian state" as its neighbor.
CIA Director Leon Panetta told The New Yorker magazine that former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's approach to terrorism almost suggests "he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make...
An Israeli court on Sunday sentenced two Palestinian reporters working for an Iranian television to two months in jail for breaking censorship rules during the Gaza war in 2008, local media said.
New US general takes command in Afghanistan
A veteran commander of top-secret special operations took charge of the nearly 90,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Monday, promising to shield Afghans from civilian casualties that have cost Western troops support.
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is recovering after breaking her arm in a fall and will remain in hospital until at least Monday, a spokesman said on Saturday.
Ahmadinejad set to win in Iranian vote
Final results in Iran's hotly contested presidential race were expected soon, election officials said Saturday morning, as hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a commanding lead.
North Korea to 'weaponize' its plutonium
North Korea vowed on Saturday to embark on a uranium enrichment program and "weaponize" all the plutonium in its possession as it rejected the new U.N. sanctions meant to punish the communist nation for its recent nuclear test.
Six more bodies from last week’s Air France crash have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean by the French ship Mistral as the hunt for victims and debris goes on amid bad weather conditions, the Brazilian military said. The six are in addition t...
A German man who called himself Clark Rockefeller and spun fantastic stories about himself during three decades in the United States was convicted Friday of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter and sentenced to four to five years in prison.
California to introduce digital textbooks
The California Department of Education is moving forward on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to scrap printed high school textbooks for digital ones.