The U.S. troops emphasize persuasion in trying to get farmers to change to other crops to keep drug money out of the Taliban's hands. They're also planning an assault on an insurgent stronghold.

Under an awning set up at a tiny outpost guarded by U.S. Marines, the district governor of Nawa is pleading with three dozen solemn-looking farmers and village elders not to plant the crop that feeds the world heroin market.

Though they're technically illegal, abortions are prevalent and rarely discussed in the political sphere. One doctor has become the face of a movement to change that.

For nearly two decades, obstetrician Shim Sang-duk aborted as many babies as he delivered -- on average, one a day, month after month.

Authorities say terrorists planted a device on the tracks that detonated under the high-speed Nevsky Express carrying more than 650 passengers from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Russian officials are blaming terrorists for the derailment of a Moscow-to-St. Petersburg passenger train that killed at least 26 people and injured dozens more.

Britain's prime minister discusses the benchmarks that President Hamid Karzai will be expected to meet as control of the country is handed over to local forces.

Countries backing Afghanistan's government are going to demand that it meet specific security benchmarks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday, outlining a plan to let foreign troops gradually hand control to local forces.

Zardari, widely unpopular, says he plans to transfer other powers too to the directly elected prime minister. The move comes as an amnesty that shielded him against corruption charges expires.

Embroiled in a major crisis that threatens his political future, President Asif Ali Zardari has given up control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and has pledged to relinquish his power to dissolve parliament.

A triple-deck ferry packed with hundreds of travelers heading home for an Islamic festival capsized as they disembarked in southern Bangladesh, leaving at least 40 people dead and scores missing, authorities said today.

Russia and China join a vote by the U.N. nuclear agency's board to issue a rebuke to Iran over its atomic program. Iran strongly objects.

Russia and China joined the United States and its European allies on Friday in formally rebuking Iran over its nuclear program at a meeting of the United Nations nuclear technology watchdog.

The de facto leaders appear to have gotten away with a military-backed coup. Not only have efforts to restore the ousted leader failed, but the U.S. has said it will recognize a new presidential vote.

Reporting from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Mexico City -- The de facto rulers of Honduras will observe more than elections Sunday: They staged the first military-backed coup in Central America in 16 years -- and got away with it.

The collapse of the economy after a coup and political crisis have worsened the lot of the urban poor, with children suffering the most, U.N. officials say.

The man grabs a metal bar, raises it and shouts at several boys playing on a see-saw. The boys' faces freeze in fear. They flee.

After months of admitting guilt and expressing remorse, Kang Kek Ieu, better known as Duch, challenges the legitimacy of the U.N.-Cambodian war crimes tribunal.

A former Khmer Rouge prison chief who presided over the torture of about 15,000 prisoners who were later executed astonished observers of Cambodia's first genocide trial Friday by asking judges to release him because he had already served enough prison time and arguing that he shouldn't have been prosecuted in the first place.

As the U.S. and China issue pledges in advance of the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen, India holds back on announcing any goal that it fears could hinder economic development.

India found itself under growing pressure this week to set an emission reduction target after China and the United States announced their pledges in advance of a global summit on climate change that opens early next month.

His convoy is hit in southern Afghanistan and a guard is injured. In his Eid holiday address, President Karzai renewed his calls for insurgents to put down their arms.

The governor of a violent southern province in Afghanistan escaped assassination Friday, even as President Hamid Karzai renewed his calls to insurgents to lay down their weapons.

Labor Minister Franz Josef Jung, a former defense minister, accepts responsibility for the government's withholding of information about an operation that killed Afghan civilians.

A top German official resigned Friday after admitting that the government had withheld information about Afghan civilian casualties after a NATO airstrike.

The promise, along with a target announced by Obama the day before, raises expectations for the Copenhagen climate summit next month.

China vowed Thursday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half over the next decade, a move that environmentalists and the Obama administration hailed as a major, and perhaps decisive, development toward agreement on a comprehensive climate treaty.

Although China's announcement that it will reduce the intensity of its greenhouse gas emissions does not mean a reduction in total emissions, environmentalists now see more promise for climate summit.

China vowed Thursday to steeply reduce the intensity of its greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, a move that environmentalists and the Obama administration hailed as a major, and perhaps decisive, development toward agreement on a comprehensive climate treaty.

Experts fear the conflicts involving cattle, water and land may be just the beginning of climate-driven violence in Africa. At least 400 people have died in northern Kenya this year, the U.N. says.

Have the climate wars of Africa begun?

A three-year government inquiry into the church and state's handling of abuse cases in Dublin from 1975 to 2004 reveals a policy of cover-up. Officials even took out insurance to pay future claims.

Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin engaged in a widespread cover-up of abuses by clergy members for decades, a "scandal on an astonishing scale" that even saw officials taking out insurance policies to protect dioceses against future claims by the victims, a commission reported Thursday after a three-year investigation.

The former British ambassador to the U.S. tells a panel of inquiry into the Iraq war that Prime Minister Tony Blair began speaking publicly of 'regime change' after visiting the Bush ranch in Texas.

A meeting between President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq marked a turning point in the march toward war, Britain's former ambassador to the United States testified Thursday.

The pot roast is frozen and the live turkeys are not fat enough. But the company's seven-month deployment is ending soon.

For the Marines of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, this Thanksgiving in Afghanistan brought one overriding thing to be thankful for: They're about to go home.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission says South Korean authorities massacred at least 4,934 civilians suspected of being North Korean sympathizers.

Shedding new light on a long-suppressed chapter of the Korean War, a government commission acknowledged Thursday that South Korean soldiers and police executed about 5,000 suspected North Korean sympathizers during the early months of the conflict.