Middle East

Officials fear the number could rise once emergency teams are able to survey devastated areas. More than 26,000 people are said to be trapped on rooftops; many urgently need food and drinking water.

As the death toll from this week's flash floods rose to at least 800 Saturday, authorities tried desperately to rescue thousands of stranded villagers and deliver emergency relief to stricken areas.

U.S. troops now account for about two-thirds of the NATO force in Afghanistan, and Americans make up more than two-thirds of July's Western military fatalities.

The platoon sergeant was inspecting the gaping crater left by a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan when a second thunderous blast went off just 20 feet away.

A thickening hopelessness hangs over the 1.5 million displaced people who await more durable shelters. 'I hope the international community can keep our hope alive, because it's fading,' one said.

Reporting from Corail-Cesselesse, Haiti

A video of an activist in restive Papua province being taunted and viciously killed by police bolsters allegations that the military and police there act with brute force and impunity.

The video, shot in the jungle of Indonesia's restive Papua province, shows a wounded political activist lying face-up on the ground, surrounded by an armed national police tactical squad.

The cameramen were seized Monday after covering protests at a Durango prison that is said to be under the control of organized crime. One reporter remains unaccounted for.

Mexican federal police on Saturday rescued two of four journalists kidnapped five days earlier by a drug gang in northern Mexico, authorities said.

More women are making their mark in a once male-dominated corporate workplace. Both single and married, Japanese women are earning more, analysts say, and they're not afraid to spend what they earn.

After 25 years working as an accounting assistant in a leading construction company, Asako Nakano decided two summers ago that she needed to stabilize her retirement plans. So she took the plunge and bought a condominium.

Demonstrators again try to assert their constitutional right to gather in protest, but thousands of troops and riot police are at a downtown Moscow square to seize them.

The last time opposition demonstrators tried to march in downtown Moscow, Triumfalnaya Square was taken up by pro-Kremlin youth organizations donating blood. On Saturday, it was an auto show, complete with noisy and noxious car races.

A strengthening Lebanese government is helping the militant group Hezbollah bust alleged spy cells, sometimes using tools and tradecraft acquired from Western nations.

The chief of Lebanon's domestic security forces had a warning for the Hezbollah commander: "You've been infiltrated."

Recovery workers found the "black box" flight data recorder Saturday in the wreckage of Pakistan's worst-ever plane crash, and it appeared to be in good condition, officials said.

Youseff Mume Saleh's nightly feeding ritual, a tradition in his town of Harar, has become an attraction for tourists.

Here in this medieval city in eastern Ethiopia, the humans and the hyenas are living in peace.