WORLD
March 8, 2010 | By Robyn Dixon and Aminu Abubakar
Reporting from Ratsat, Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, and Lagos, Nigeria -- The victims of Sunday's sectarian massacres were buried in mass graves in central Nigeria on Monday as survivors told horrific stories of Christian villagers being trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsmen. Reports on the death toll differed wildly, with some placing it at about 200 and others reporting 528 killed and thousands injured. Casualty figures in the recurrent Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria's volatile Plateau state are often difficult to ascertain, as each side inflates its losses.
WORLD
February 28, 2010 | By Chris Kraul
One of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history rocked Chile on Saturday, killing more than 300 people, toppling buildings and freeways, and setting off sirens thousands of miles away as governments scrambled to protect coastal residents from the ensuing tsunami. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared parts of the country "catastrophe zones" in the wake of the magnitude 8.8 quake, which was centered offshore, about 70 miles north of the port city of Concepcion. With images of Haiti's devastation from an earthquake last month still fresh, the world woke up to a new disaster and fears of another catastrophic toll.
WORLD
March 9, 2010 | By Paul Richter
After keeping a careful distance for the last year, the Obama administration has concluded that the Iranian opposition movement has staying power and has embraced it as a central element in the U.S.-led campaign to pressure the country's clerical government. Administration officials and some allied governments believe that a combination of domestic unrest and international sanctions targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard offers the best hope for forcing Tehran to yield on its nuclear program, and could even lead to a change in the government.
WORLD
February 16, 2010 | By Borzou Daragahi
Bluntly warning that Iran is sliding into military dictatorship, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience in Qatar on Monday that economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic should be increasingly aimed at its elite Revolutionary Guard. Clinton, who was in Doha, the capital, for a conference on relations between the U.S. and the Islamic world, appeared to suggest that such a strategy could help rein in the ideologically motivated branch of the Iranian military by widening rifts within Iran's domestic political establishment.
WORLD
March 12, 2010 | By Edmund Sanders
Reporting from Jerusalem — You come for a hug. You leave with a slap. It happens in the Middle East. Vice President Joe Biden's trip this week was supposed to highlight U.S.-Israeli cooperation to counter a perceived nuclear threat from Iran and kick off U.S.-brokered indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, talk about Iran was sidetracked and the outlook for peace may be murkier than it was before. Even here, people are not quite sure how that happened.
WORLD
March 4, 2010 | By Robyn Dixon
Nigeria's ailing president may still be flat on his back in the ambulance that rushed him from the airport to his residence after his secretive return last week from Saudi Arabia, where he was treated for heart-related health issues. Or sitting in a hard-backed chair in his official residence, while nieces, nephews and grandchildren tear up and down the stairs. Or working out daily on an exercise bike and walking up and down stairs. Any of the scenarios, reported by Nigerian newspapers or by President Umaru Yar'Adua's supporters, could be true, false or somewhere between, but they're all that Nigerians have to go on: The president has not addressed the public since he left the country for treatment in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, for pericarditis, inflammation of the lining around the heart, in November, not even after he returned Feb. 24. One thing that does seem clear is that since the president's return, acting President Goodluck Jonathan has been unsuccessful in several attempts to see him. Yar'Adua's supporters put this down to the president's introverted personality and insist that he's on his feet and doing well.
WORLD
March 10, 2010 | By Edmund Sanders
Media Titan to Rivals: Drop Dead! edia Titan to Rivals: Drop Dead! That's tabloid shorthand for the Darwinian clash unfolding between Israel's three biggest newspaper barons. The story begins with a publicity-shy publisher who built a paper so popular and powerful it was deemed a monopoly. Nipping at his heels is a scrappy businessman who once wiretapped competitors and later destroyed an incriminating document by swallowing it. But it didn't become a battle royal until a Jewish-American billionaire, borrowing a page from Fox News, launched a "fair and balanced" newspaper to counter what he called liberal media.
WORLD
March 10, 2010 | By Tony Perry
Although pirates last year made many more attempts to board ships in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia, the number of successful seizures was about the same as in 2008, according to the U.S.-organized multinational maritime force here. The figures suggest that new "defensive driving" tactics adopted by many commercial shipping companies are helping ward off attackers, naval officials said. There were 198 attempts at piracy in the vast region last year, a 62% increase from 2008, but only 44 attempts were successful.
WORLD
March 13, 2010 | By Mark Magnier
India signed five deals Friday to purchase more than $7 billion in hardware and expertise from Russia, including an aircraft carrier, a fleet of MIG-29 fighters, defense and space technology and at least 12 civilian nuclear reactors. On the minds of both parties, analysts said, was a nation not present at the signing. "China will be the ghost in the room," wrote analyst C. Raja Mohan in an opinion piece this week in the Indian Express. Having a working aircraft carrier -- India's only carrier, the 50-year-old British-built Viraat, rarely leaves port -- should allow India to expand its presence in the Indian Ocean.
WORLD
February 9, 2010 | By Megan K. Stack
Pressure swelled Monday for Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to bow out gracefully from a hard-fought and narrowly lost presidential race. But the calls for closure were met with silence from Tymoshenko. The politician known for her relentless drive and seemingly bottomless patience for political tussles stayed out of sight as the country waited for a concession -- or a battle cry. Events appeared to be marching forward without her. Hundreds of supporters of her opponent, Viktor Yanukovich, celebrated his victory -- and called upon Tymoshenko to relinquish the campaign -- in a rowdy rally in central Kiev, the capital.