Hengjiang Village is nestled in the lush mountains of China's Hunan province, just a few kilometers from the bustling city of Wugang. It is a simple place, where mopeds carrying families of four zoom up and down dirt roads and villagers drink water from local wells. Their simple, unassuming way of life was shattered when children started getting sick. A few cases turned into hundreds and parents started to worry. So far, 1,354 children in Hunan province have tested positive ...

The early returns from Afghanistan's presidential election had the smell of a decorous massage job. With 10% of districts reporting, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister, were tied, with about 40% each. But few of those votes came from Karzai's Pashtun strongholds in the south, where turnout was light — owing to Taliban threats — but heavily managed. "It's not exactly one man, one vote out in the rural areas," a ...

In the foothills of the Central Mountain chain in southern Taiwan, a rescue helicopter lowers itself onto an athletic field in the town of Nei Pu. The helicopter doors open and eight typhoon survivors stumble out with their belongings in plastic bags. It is a scene that plays out all day. Most of the survivors of Typhoon Morakot are indigenous Taiwanese who live in aboriginal villages in the mountains. Many old-timers say it is the worst typhoon damage they've seen ...

DNA testing shows that Indonesia's most wanted terror suspect, Noordin Top, was not killed in an 18-hour raid in Central Java during the weekend, national police said on Wednesday. "After matching the DNA to the relatives of Noordin in Malaysia and Indonesia we can confirm that the body ... is not Noordin Top," said Edy Suparwoko of the national police disaster victim identification unit. "The body belongs to Ibrohim, a member of Noordin's network," said Nanan Soekarna, a spokesman ...

Senior members of the Palestinian Fatah party appear to have suffered a serious upset in a vote to determine the party's key decision-making body. Fatah party members voted among 18 candidates who are vying for seats on the Central Committee, the party's highest decision-making body. Final results will be released later on Tuesday, the last day of the party's weeklong conference -- its first in 20 years. Unofficial results show a major upheaval of Fatah's old guard. One shock is ...

Kuwaiti security forces arrested six Kuwaitis linked to al Qaeda who planned to attack a U.S. military installation, the country's state-run news agency reported Tuesday. The suspects had planned to bomb Camp Arifjan during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Kuwaiti security sources said. It is unclear when the arrests took place. The plot also involved an attack on Kuwait's State Security Service headquarters and other government facilities, according to the Kuwait News Agency, which cited a statement ...

Chinese leaders Monday mourned the death of Zhuo Lin, wife of former national leader Deng Xiaoping. Zhuo, a former consultant of the Central Military Commission General Office, died July 29 at age 93 and was cremated Monday, state-run news agency Xinhua reported. She was "an excellent Communist Party of China member and time-honored loyal communist fighter," the party said in a written statement. Zhuo stood by Deng through decades of what CNN once described as "amazing comebacks" from "political purges." ...

There is growing concern that local militias now allied with the U.S. are turning their guns on each other as the U.S. prepares to pull back its presence. These groups have been tasked with pacifying some of the most restive corners of Iraq — contributing to the measure of stability enjoyed by the country in the last few months. "We're paying them and training them so they're effective," says Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, ...

Typhoon Morakot bore down on Taiwan Friday, packing strong winds and threatening to soak the entire island upon landfall Friday evening or later, depending on the speed of the system, CNN meteorologist Jennifer Delgado said. The typhoon is expected to reach land between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday (10 a.m. and 12 p.m. GMT), according to Delgado. The typhoon will dump about 40 to 50 inches (1 to 1.27 meters) of rain in the area, she added. As of ...

Could the diplomatic rescue mission by Bill Clinton in North Korea be a model for winning the freedom of three American hikers arrested last week when they wandered from Iraqi Kurdistan into Iranian territory? The emotional reunion of journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling with their families in America must have given hope to the relatives of the three hikers, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal. If a way was found to solve an impasse between ...