World News

Taliban militants launched a surprise attack on a key southern Afghan city Sunday sparking a battle that killed some 60 insurgents, an Afghan official said.

An earthquake in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya has killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100 more, officials say.

Britain will launch its biggest retail bank rescue on Monday when the four largest, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and Barclays, ask for a 35 billion sterling lifeline, the Sunday Times reported.

European leaders meet today to forge a new set of measures to combat the credit freeze after their failure to act a week ago contributed to the worst sell-off in the region's stocks in two decades.

A suspected U.S. missile strike killed five tribesmen in a Pakistani town close to the Afghan border, the latest in a series of attacks in a region where top al-Qaida leaders are believed to be living, two intelligence officials said.

The International Monetary Fund warned Saturday that debt-ridden banks were pushing the global financial system to the brink of meltdown and rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence.

Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider, a charismatic populist who helped bring anti-immigrant politics into the European mainstream, was killed in a car accident on Saturday.

PUERTO SAN CARLOS, Mexico - Scores of people fled flooded homes Saturday as Hurricane Norbert lashed Mexico's southern Baja California peninsula with torrential rains and screaming winds.

Nato forces in Afghanistan will target Afghan drug lords and opium laboratories in an attempt to stop the booming drugs trade financing Taliban insurgents, it has been agreed .

Portugal's ruling party and the main opposition shot down Friday the latest proposals to allow same-sex marriages in the Roman Catholic country.

Iraqi police say eight people have been killed after a car bomb struck a market in a Shiite enclave in southwestern Baghdad.

I recently wrote that Albania and Kosovo were the two most secular Muslim-majority countries I have ever visited. That is no longer true. Azerbaijan is the most secular Muslim-majority country I have ever visited.

Not once in a week did I heard the muezzin’s call to prayer. I saw only two or maybe three women wearing conservative Islamic clothing, and never anything more conservative than a headscarf.

Baku, though, seemed even more secular than Western Europe. The capital looks like a prosperous and mostly Westernized city-state that's slightly out-of-place in a world of the East, like what you'd get if you crashed Moscow and Istanbul together. It makes sense that Baku appears as it does.

Recent archaeological findings indicate that the Turkish city of Istanbul is 6,000 years older than what experts previously believed.

According to Al-Watan newspaper, excavations have yielded four skeletons, along with wooden and ceramic objects, which date back to 8,500 years ago.

It was previously believed that the city was founded 2,700 years ago by the Greeks and named Byzantium, RIA Novosti reported.

Historically known as Constantinople, Istanbul was Turkey's capital until 1923, when the government moved to Ankara.

A massive sell-off on Wall Street and escalating fears of a global recession sent Asian stocks plunging Friday, with Japan's benchmark index plunging more than 10 percent.

OPEC will hold an extraordinary meeting Nov. 18 to discuss how the widening global financial crisis is affecting oil prices.

A suspected U.S. missile strike targeted two areas in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border Thursday, killing at least nine people, intelligence officials said.

The leader of Georgian workers` party, Shalva Natelashvili, has severely criticized the country`s government over allegedly forging close relations with Armenia.

At a news conference in Tbilisi, the opposition leader came out against the proposed project to build a road between the two countries, stretching from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to the Georgian port of Batumi, through the country`s Ajaria region. He compared the road with the Rox tunnel in Georgia`s rebel region of South Ossetia. Building such a road could pave the way for another outbreak of separatism, Natelashvili said.

Further, he said that at a time when the country was fighting a war with Russia, Georgian media repeatedly cited facts proving that Russian warplanes bombing targets in Georgia were taking off from Armenian territory. However, Tbilisi has never responded to these allegations.

Natelashvili said the position taken by Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian during the August war should also be condemned. "At a time dead Georgian soldiers were lined up along the road near Tskhinvali [the capital of unrecognized South Ossetia], Serzh Sarkisian was raising toasts with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev," Natelashvili said. It is indicative that, following a brief war between Russia and Georgia, Sarkisian visited Tbilisi and was awarded the Order of Honor by President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia launched large-scale military operations on August 8 in South Ossetia to restore its territorial integrity. Moscow responded by sending troops to the pro- Russian region that struck Georgian armed forces using overwhelming force. Georgian forces initially gained control over Tskhinvali, but had to retreat a day later following a Russian attack. A ceasefire was, subsequently, reached on August 17 to end the brief war, with the mediation of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Qantas Airways said Thursday it will compensate all passengers who were on board a plane that made a terrifying plunge this week, tossing people around the cabin and injuring dozens.

Oct 8 - U.S. General David Petraeus said negotiations with some members of the Taliban could provide a way to reduce violence in Afghanistan.

Russian troops pulled back from their positions outside Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia but held their ground in contested areas, setting the stage for more tension between the ...