The celebrities and the superrich who live in Isleworth, including Tiger Woods, would like to project a common touch. Every Halloween, residents of the gated golf community near Orlando, Fla., decorate their golf carts and drive trick-or-treaters door-to-door. They share lunches and dinners at the country club, play pickup basketball games and hold community events. "It's pretty normal," says Rav Mehta, CEO of a software-development firm who lives just outside Isleworth's vine-covered walls but has many friends inside. Normal ...

Italy's influential Northern League Party has stood out over the past decade for its particular knack in finding new ways of offending people based on country of origin and color of skin. In 2003, Umberto Bossi, founder of the party, which once espoused separatism, told an interviewer that police should open fire on the boatloads of undocumented Africans arriving on Italian shores, calling the would-be immigrants "bingo-bongos." Other Northern League pols have proposed everything from separate trains ...

At the crossroads between east and west in the desert nation of Turkmenistan, a quiet battle is under way for natural gas, oil and influence, and the U.S. and Europe are losing out to China and the Muslim world. There's a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to ...

The naming of an honorary economic advisor to a small Southeast Asian country doesn't usually make news. But Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's designation of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as his financial mentor on Wednesday has sparked an international ruckus, with both countries trading trans-border barbs and recalling their respective ambassadors. Confused Here's the background. After Thaksin was deposed in a 2006 bloodless military coup and sentenced in absentia to two years' imprisonment for a conflict of interest conviction — a verdict he ...

'Tis the season to be shopping for best-selling books. Thanks to an almost comical price war that has broken out among a few of the country's retail giants, more people may be reading over the holidays. On Oct. 15, Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announced it was lowering its online preorder price for 10 new book releases. The new cost: a measly $10. The titles include the Sarah Palin memoir Going Rogue, John Grisham's Ford Country and Michael ...

Thousands flocked to Spain's capital Saturday to protest the Socialist government's move to make it easier to get an abortion. The anti-abortion protest, themed "each life is important," began at 5 p.m. in central Madrid and many leading conservative politicians attended, including former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Local media estimated the crowd in the tens of thousands. The protest was prompted by a proposed law that would ease restrictions on obtaining an abortion. Since 1985, abortion has ...

The beginning of the World Cup in South Africa next June kicks-off a festival of football on the pitch, but there are a wealth of issues for the host country to tackle off the field too. Up to half-a-million fans are expected to visit for the tournament and a string of sparkling new stadiums and hotels have sprung up to accommodate them. But that influx of supporters also brings with it a danger of an explosion in the sex trade ...

If your plans to enjoy North America's famous powder snow and tree-skiing have been derailed by the current economic downturn, why not try a quicker, cheaper and altogether more unusual winter holiday in the tiny but spectacular country of Montenegro? While many European resorts suffer from overcrowding, limited fresh snow and unskiable pine forests, Montenegro's mountains offer deep, light powder, virtually no people and acres of perfectly spaced beech trees. If your timing is right, these can rival Colorado's ...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has again indicated willingness to participate in bilateral talks with the United States and return to six-party talks over its nuclear program, China's Xinhua news agency reported. The attitude shift by North Korea -- which pulled out of talks in April to protest the United Nations' condemnation over its nuclear test and missile launches -- came amid Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's weekend visit to Pyongyang, Xinhua reported Monday. The reclusive communist country also expressed such ...

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan wants more troops and a new strategy -- but most importantly, he wants to win the battle for the hearts and the minds of the people in the war-torn country. "What I'm really telling people is the greatest risk we can accept is to lose the support of the people here," Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS's "60 Minutes" in an interview aired Sunday night. "If the people are against us, we cannot be ...