UNITED NATIONS - By the end of this year one half of the world's population will be living in cities for the first time in human history, the United Nations said in a new report released on Tuesday.
Former UN chief Kofi Annan will push Kenyan leaders Wednesday to end the country's deadly political crisis after suspending talks between their representatives when they failed to reach a deal.
(LONDON) - Drug-resistant tuberculosis is spreading even faster than medical experts had feared, the World Health Organization warned in a report issued Tuesday. The rate of TB patients infected with the drug-resistant strain topped 20 percent in some countries, the highest ever recorded, the U.N. agency said.
BEIRUT - Lebanon's political crisis is becoming more complicated and foreign influence over the struggle between the Beirut governing coalition and Hezbollah-led opposition is unprecedented, a mediator has said.
HAVANA - Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone raised the Catholic Church's concern about prisoners in Cuba in a meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro on Tuesday.
The biggest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years has shaken homes across large parts of the country.
The dollar fell to a record low of $1.50 per euro on speculation Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will indicate the U.S. central bank is prepared to keep lowering interest rates.
MANILA - Residents in central and southern Philippine were rebuilding houses as floods subsided after two weeks of heavy rains that killed 35 people and left 10 missing, officials said on Wednesday.
PRISTINA - Kosovo told Serbia on Tuesday it would not yield one inch of its territory, and a violent protest by ethnic Serbs in Bosnia against Kosovo's secession highlighted continued volatility in the Balkan region.
It doesn't look like an old-fashioned bank run because it involves the biggest financial institutions trading paper assets so complicated that even top executives don't fully understand the transactions. But that's what it is -- a spreading fear among financial institutions that their brethren can't be trusted to honor their obligations.
AMMAN, Jordan - Even as it enriches Arab rulers, the recent oil-price boom is helping to fuel an extraordinary rise in the cost of food and other basic goods that is squeezing this region's middle class and setting off strikes, demonstrations and occasional riots from Morocco to the Persian Gulf.
Democracy will not unseat him; the joint presidential and parliamentary election scheduled for March 29 will be neither free nor fair. Still, recent weeks have witnessed a series of events that suggest Mugabe is facing a concerted challenge from within his own Zanu PF party.
Wheat prices have hit record levels as supplies dwindle, raising concerns about growing food inflation.
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
A major new survey presents perhaps the most detailed picture we've yet had of which religious groups Americans belong to. And its big message is: blink and they'll change.