The spectacle in India is riveting: virulent anti-Muslim diatribes spouted by a pedigreed and ambitious young Hindu politician who shares the surname of the world's foremost apostle of non-violence and who is descended from the Prime Minister who founded modern India as a secular state to serve the country's multiplicity of faiths. Since early March, Varun Gandhi, 29, has been the scandal of India's political class after he called for, among many things, the hands of Muslims to be cut ...

Sentiment among Japan's largest manufacturers is at a record low, according to a key business survey released Wednesday morning. The Bank of Japan's quarterly Tankan survey showed sentiment among large manufacturers plunged to minus 58 in March from minus 24 in December. The previous record low for the survey was minus 57, reached during the oil shock era of the mid-1970s. The negative sentiment cut across all large, medium and small enterprises, from manufacturers to non-manufacturers, was negative. The Tankan ...

Desperation, sophisticated smuggling operations and the emergence of a small Italian island as a migrant destination provide the sad backdrop to Monday's tragedy on the Mediterranean Sea -- the capsizing of boats carrying African migrants from Libya to Italy. Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, said Tuesday that Libya for years has been a destination for migrants from the rest of Africa. Its relatively successful economy is a magnet for people from impoverished regions, and its ...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants a "real transformation" of international financial regulations out of this week's G-20 summit in London, a spokesman said Tuesday amid reports that Sarkozy will walk out of the gathering if he's not satisfied. "President Sarkozy thinks that this summit is of the utmost importance for the whole world," Sarkozy spokesman Jean-David Levitte said Tuesday. "We cannot fail." The G-20 -- financial leaders from 19 nations and the European Union -- begins meeting Thursday in London. ...

While President Obama has insisted that securing Afghanistan against a rise in terrorist groups is a top priority in the war on terrorism, Sen. John McCain said Tuesday that the problems in that country are not as thorny as those in Iraq. "It's [Afghanistan's] not as tough as Iraq, and don't let anyone tell you that it is, because when we started the [2007] surge, Iraq was virtually in a state of collapse," McCain said during a speech at ...

An Ohio man says he is seeking a jury trial on a charge of driving under the influence that was slapped on him after he crashed the vehicle he was piloting -- a barstool.

Sheik Hamid al-Hayess is not optimistic. A burly man with a thick black mustache and closely knitted brows, he is one of the founding members of the Anbar Awakening. The grouping of Sunni tribal sheiks in the once al-Qaeda–infested western province turned against the insurgents and sided with the U.S. military, providing the model for what became a nationwide campaign known as the Sahwa. But that model is in trouble. "The Sahwa has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda," he says somberly. ...

A Maryland woman involved with a group described as a religious cult pleaded guilty in the starvation death of her son, but insisted that the charges be dropped when he is resurrected. The condition was made a part of Ria Ramkissoon's plea agreement, officials said. She entered the plea Monday in Baltimore, Maryland, to a first-degree felony count of child abuse resulting in death, her attorney, Steven Silverman, said Tuesday. Ramkissoon, a member of a group called One Mind Ministries, ...

A European vacation it is not. Over the next week, President Barack Obama will board his plane anew nearly every day so that he can attend individual meetings with at least 17 political leaders from 11 nations, and appear at summits and forums in five countries to discuss international economic recovery, national security, cyber threats and global warming. He will have tea with a Queen , a private chat with a King , and convene a round table with students ...

David Bill isn't annoyed when Twitter gets so bogged down with traffic that he can't post a message. That's because in the moment when frustration would hit, he's greeted on the popular Web site by a cartoonish image he loves: a giant whale being lifted out of an ocean by a small flock of tweeting birds. The icon -- which Twitter users call it the "fail whale" because the creature appears only when the site has failed to load -- ...