Two international staffers supporting the peacekeeping mission in the volatile Sudanese region of Darfur were kidnapped Saturday morning, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force told CNN. The man and the woman, whose identities and nationalities were withheld, worked for UNAMID, a U.N. and African Union force designated to keep peace in Darfur. "Our people have been able to establish contact with the people responsible for the abduction," said UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni, but he declined to identify the abductors. The ...

Iraq's main Shiite parties Monday announced the formation of a new alliance that excludes the prime minister -- at least for now. The coalition, named the Iraqi National Alliance, was formed to compete in the country's national elections in January. It includes top Shiite parties, but not Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa party. Senior political leaders who announced the alliance in a televised meeting said they still are holding talks with Dawa and other parties. The coalition replaces ...

At least 18 people died and about 70 were wounded following a suicide bombing Monday morning outside a police headquarters in Narzon in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, Russian state television reported. "The fire was finally extinguished, but there could be more dead and wounded under the rubble of the exploded building," it said. "At about 9 a.m. local (1 a.m. ET) a suicide bomber driving a truck stuffed with explosives rammed into the gate of the police station," Kaloi ...

Hundreds of inmates using pipes and shanks as weapons trashed a California prison, burning a courtyard, ripping beds to shreds and tearing bathroom sinks from walls, a new video of the weekend riot's aftermath shows. Video shot by CNN affiliate KABC gave the first glimpse of the damage to the California Institution for Men in Chino from a riot that authorities said was ignited by racial tensions. "This certainly is probably the worst that we've seen, especially adding the extensive ...

DNA testing to try to identify hundreds of bodies buried in a mass grave during World War I will start this week, the British and Australian ministries of defense announced Monday. The bodies come from Fromelles in northern France, where thousands of British and Australian troops were killed or wounded in a single night in 1916 -- a night the Australian military still considers among the worst in its history. An exploratory dig in May of this year confirmed that ...

A pregnant British woman, who was jailed in Laos on drug charges, arrived in London Friday after being handed over to British authorities to serve her sentence at home. Lao authorities had agreed to release Samantha Orobator and John Watson, another Briton jailed on drug charges, after signing a deal with British authorities last week. The 20-year old was flown from the Lao capital, Vientiane, on Thursday. In a statement Orobator said: "I am enormously relieved and happy to ...

It was only a few years ago that an up-and-coming member of the House Democratic leadership pointed to a cozy arrangement in the Republican-written Medicare prescription-drug program as a symptom of everything wrong with Washington. The 2003 bill barred the government from negotiating for lower drug prices for its 43 million Medicare recipients. Instead, that task was delegated to private insurers and their agents, whom Democrats argued — and still argue — don't have the muscle to get the steep ...

A leader of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebel group has been arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, state television in Sri Lanka reported Thursday. Investigators would not release what was said in the conversation but the clues have led police to try and find the woman. Madeleine vanished from the family's holiday villa at the Portuguese beach resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007, as her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, dined in a nearby restaurant. She was 3 years old ...

It's a moment familiar to any regular air traveler. The plane bucks up and down, lurches forward and back, or both. Sometimes overhead bins fly open. The squeamish gasp. Babies cry. Then, usually, it's all over. In-flight turbulence is often a mere inconvenience. But it's also the leading cause of airline passenger injuries that are not associated with a fatal crash, experts say. And, on rare occasions, it can be deadly. In the case of Monday's Continental Flight 128, an ...

If you are behind the wheel of your car, someone may be on to you. More and more cities are equipping patrolmen, toll booths and even access roads with computer sidekicks that can keep track of vehicle movements; but by doing so, they are not only changing the face of 21st century law enforcement but sparking debate over privacy issues. Automated license plate recognition systems mounted in patrol cars, are capable of processing 1,500 license plates a ...