Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday.

The Vatican on Sunday raised the possibility of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to spare the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

North Korea's ruling communist party members gathered in Pyongyang ahead of their largest political conference in 30 years, state media reported Monday, amid predictions that leader Kim Jong Il would use the meeting to give a key ruling party position to one of his sons.

The Basque regional government says a cease-fire announcement by the separatist group ETA is "absolutely insufficient" because the group has not renounced violence or announced its dissolution.

The disaster that will likely keep the miners underground for months also has shaken the fault lines in their families above. Some squabble over who should get the miners' August wage.

Two boats capsized over the weekend in separate incidents on Congo's vast rivers, leaving 70 people dead and 200 others feared dead, and both vessels were heavily loaded and operating with few safety measures, officials said Sunday.

The floodwaters that already devastated one crop in the fields are threatening the next season's crop as well, an aftershock aid workers fear could add to Pakistan's misery and prolong the crisis.

Army troops took control of the center of the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Monday, two days after a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake smashed buildings and homes, wrecked roads and rail lines — but caused no loss of life.

Iran's president said Sunday that any Israeli attack against his nation would mean the destruction of the Jewish state.

Just days after Mideast peace talks began, a crisis looms: Israel hinted it will ease restrictions on West Bank building, while the Palestinian president warned he'll quit the talks if Israel resumes construction.

Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — some of them rescuers who had come to save people already trapped by a wall of mud.

At least five people were killed and 35 wounded Sunday when a suicide bomber attacked troops at a firing range in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan, sources said.

Japan is going back to basics after a 10-year experiment in "pressure-free education," which encouraged more application of knowledge and less rote memorization.

A pilot of a small propeller-driven plane lost control of his aircraft while taking off at a flight show in southern Germany and crashed into a group of spectators Sunday, leaving one person dead and 38 injured, police said.

The man who once served as the international face of Saddam Hussein's regime predicted Sunday that he will die in an Iraqi jail, citing his old age and lengthy prison sentence.

Several thousand people gathered in Kosovo's capital Sunday to mark the opening of a Roman Catholic cathedral named after Mother Teresa.

A leading virus expert urged health authorities around the world Sunday to stay vigilant even though the recent swine flu pandemic was less deadly than expected, warning that bird flu could spark the next global outbreak.

Uruguayans who survived more than 2 months of isolation in the Andes after a plane crash met Saturday with some of the relatives of 33 trapped miners and urged them to stay strong.

What began last month with the arrest of an opposition leader in Bahrain has mushroomed into a full-blown political offensive in the tiny Gulf nation with big fault lines: U.S.-allied Sunni rulers against members of a Shiite majority being cast as coup plotters who could open the door to Iranian influence.