As devastating floods appear to widen divisions, Pakistani officials, some accused of ineptitude and favoritism, are trying to repair the political damage.

The most influential of Egypt’s dissident groups is caught between fighting and placating the government.

A mix-up over a photograph led to a sentence of 99 lashes for the Iranian woman whose earlier death sentence by stoning caused an international outcry, a lawyer said.

A bomber rammed a vehicle into a police station on Monday, killing 17 people and injuring at least 46, according to officials.

The famadihana, a ritual in which relatives remove the dead from their tombs in an atmosphere of celebration, continues among various faiths in the island nation.

Downing Street’s chief communications officer is being accused again of encouraging reporters to illegally intercept messages when he was editor of The News of the World.

Spain’s interior minister said on Monday that he did not trust a cease-fire announcement from ETA, the Basque separatist group.

A coordinated attack on one of the main military commands in Baghdad punctuated a sharp rise in violence as the United States declared an official end to its combat mission.

The move comes at a time when several European countries, including Italy and Sweden, are reconsidering long-held policies against nuclear energy.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Struggling to contain an escalating crisis at Kabul Bank, Afghan authorities have barred the sale of Kabul properties held by the bank's principal owners.


Hamid Karzai - Afghanistan - Warfare and Conflict - Afghanistan Civil War - Peace Process

BAGHDAD - Just five days after the United States declared the end of its combat mission in Iraq, U.S. soldiers opened fire Sunday morning on suicide bombers who snuck into an Iraqi army base in Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.


Iraq - Baghdad - Middle East - Warfare and Conflict - Suicide attack

North Korea will release seven crew members detained since last month after their fishing boat was captured in the East Sea, Pyongyang's news agency said Monday. The Korean Central News Agency said that the fishermen apologized for trespassing in North Korean waters, and were released with the "c...


North Korea - Asia - South Korea - Korea - United States

SEOUL - Party officials are arriving in Pyongyang, North Korea's state-run media said Monday, signaling an imminent meeting that outsiders describe as a critical step in leader Kim Jong Il's hereditary power transfer.



North Korea - Kim Jong-il - Asia - Pyongyang - History

IN SUKKUR, PAKISTAN As ruined lives and landscapes threaten Pakistan's fragile government, another dismal reality might help save it: The refugees from this summer's catastrophic floods have profoundly low expectations of their leaders.


Pakistan - Asia - Refugee - Arts and Entertainment - Music

SAN MARTIN DE SAMIRIA, PERU - To the untrained eye, all evidence here in the heart of the Amazon signals virgin forest, untouched by man for time immemorial - from the ubiquitous fruit palms to the cry of howler monkeys, from the air thick with mosquitoes to the unruly tangle of jungle vines.


Physics - Business - People - Alternative - Unified Theories

MADRID - The armed Basque separatist group ETA, under pressure from political allies to renounce violence and weakened repeatedly by the arrests of its leaders, announced another cease-fire Sunday, suggesting it might turn to a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.


Spain - Terrorism - ETA - European Union - Basque nationalism

NAHUALA, Guatemala -- Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala - some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud.



Guatemala - Mudslide - Central America - State of emergency - Mexico

At least 18 people, none of them Americans, are killed and 39 wounded in the attack by insurgents. The incident comes five days after President Obama declared an end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

American soldiers helped Iraqi troops battle insurgents in downtown Baghdad on Sunday, repelling a major attack in the heart of the capital five days after President Obama declared an end to U.S. combat operations.

For 17 years, a former furniture maker has been selling his handmade wooden tiny trucks and tractors on a roadside in Punjab, the real versions rumbling by a few feet away.

He's watched the cheap Chinese toys come in, a flimsy, mass-produced onslaught. That's of little concern. He's doing something more meaningful, something that will last.

The kidnappings of five petroleum company workers along with 30 others have terrorized the oil community, paralyzing segments of the business. Months later, families have still heard nothing.

The meandering network of pipes, wells and tankers belonging to the gigantic state oil company Pemex have long been an easy target of crooks and drug traffickers who siphon off natural gas, gasoline and even crude, robbing the Mexican treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Secrecy abounds ahead of the first party congress in decades. Experts expect it to set the stage for officially naming the ailing Kim Jong Il's successor, said to be his youngest son.

For a confab with such far-reaching implications, not much is known about North Korea's largest political gathering in three decades, rumored to be staged in the capital of Pyongyang this week.

The Kajaki Dam in southern Afghanistan was built in the 1950s with U.S. aid but fell into disrepair in the late 1970s. Efforts to repair it have faltered as the Taliban controls an access road.

There may be no better symbol of American involvement in southern Afghanistan — initial success, current frustration and an uncertain future — than the giant Kajaki Dam.

The ETA separatist group, severely weakened by arrests, internal strife and dwindling support, says it will try the 'democratic process.' The truce is met with skepticism by the Spanish government.

Weakened and on the run, the Basque separatist group ETA said Sunday that it was declaring a cease-fire in its armed campaign against the Spanish government and that it was willing to try to achieve its aims through democratic means.

The explosion behind a police station kills seven officers and eight civilians, including four children on their way to school.

A Taliban suicide bomber detonated a car Monday in an alley behind a police station in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 17 police and civilians and shattering the station and neighboring homes.

For a month, 33 Chilean copper miners have been trapped in a 'refuge,' after surviving a cave-in. As Chile and the rest of the world watch transfixed, experts have swarmed to offer advice on coping.

Above ground, the scene is alternately somber and surreal: Anxious loved ones, fingering crucifixes blessed by Pope Benedict XVI. Four scientists from NASA, warning that light deprivation is their greatest worry. A Mexican norteno band in black suits and cowboy hats, offering a USB flash drive with its songs for the men. And now, giving advice on keeping spirits up, survivors of the 1972 Andean plane crash that inspired the movie "Alive."

Authorities say 77,000 protesters hit the streets in 130 towns across France in opposition to Sarkozy's program to dismantle illegal Roma camps.

With the fast beat of Gypsy music rousing the crowd over loudspeakers, thousands marched in Paris and other cities Saturday to protest the French government's deportations of Roma immigrants in the name of crime prevention.

There were mermaids in the pool, swimsuit models on the pool deck, a DJ spinning world music and about 100 guests, all dressed in white, quaffing Veuve Clicquot Champagne and snacking on grilled lobster in a chandelier-lit tent on the sixth-floor terrace of the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Orlando early Sunday evening.

The Orange County mayor's race between Bill Segal and Teresa Jacobs likely will turn on broad themes of trust and competence, or who has the best plans to create jobs, balance budgets and keep government services intact.

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Hermine has formed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas.

Labor Day is promising some heat and humidity but also some rain.

Labor Day 2010 arrives with far too little labor to go around.

Veteran high school football coach charged with soliciting a prostitute

A Daytona Beach coach was arrested during a beachside prostitution bust Saturday night, according to Daytona Beach police.

Hashing out a merit-pay plan for teachers is the biggest challenge, as the state tries to meet federal deadlines

Florida's victory in the federal Race to the Top education competition was barely a day old when school superintendents learned the grant program's clock was running down — and fast.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The Black Widow of eating contests has gobbled up nearly 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes, devouring the national championship record in Buffalo, N.Y.

TALLAHASSEE (AP) — The Florida Department of Veterans Affairs is seeking land to develop two national cemeteries, one in Central Florida, the other in Tallahassee.

This is what Anar Gul found when he came home: eight thin mattresses covered with polyester swirls; a dozen blankets; a broken tape player; and a large metal box buried deep in the mud. The clothes inside had begun to rot after more than two weeks in the ground.

They leap from helicopters or speeding boats, bringing aid to swimmers who get into trouble off Italy's popular beaches.<p/> For these canine lifeguards, the doggie paddle does just fine.

Here's a new twist in the U.S. military's Islamic sensitivity effort in the prison camps for suspected terrorists at the Guant&aacute;namo Bay Navy base:

Iraqis danced in the streets when U.S. troops withdrew from their cities a little more than a year ago. After the last American combat brigade trundled across the border into Kuwait early Thursday, reversing a journey that began more than seven years ago, there was no rejoicing.

The humanitarian and economic disaster caused by the worst floods in Pakistan's history could spark political unrest that could destabilize the government, dealing a major blow to the Obama administration's efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism.

The Pakistan government's poor response to the worst floods in the country's history has damaged its fragile democracy, while the powerful military establishment has gained stature with its emergency relief work, analysts said.

At least 20 candidates have filed to run for Haiti's critical post-quake presidential elections slated for this fall as registration wrapped up on Saturday.

Boiled plantain-flavored water as soup. A greasy scoop of bland, yellowing beef fat as a side dish. A stew dubbed ``the giraffe'' because ``you had to stretch your neck to find something in it.'' A hairy heap of ground pig eyes, cheek, ears, and other unidentifiable parts served as a main course.

The U.S. and Pakistani governments moved swiftly Monday to say that a trove of leaked U.S. military documents paints a dated and incomplete portrait of Pakistan as an untrustworthy partner against militants who use the country as a safe zone.