The candidate who will face Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a runoff election next month said Friday that he won't join Karzai's government if the incumbent wins another term, but instead will remain in opposition. Abdullah Abdullah, who served as foreign minister in Karzai's government until quitting nearly four years ago, said he would congratulate Karzai if he "is elected through a transparent and credible process." "My trust in becoming a candidate was not to be part of the same ...

Afghanistan's president is downplaying accusations of widespread fraud in his country's recent elections, but he's emphasizing the importance of a runoff for the sake of ensuring peace and stability in his nascent and war-torn democracy. "We must have a second round," said Hamid Karzai, speaking in a taped and exclusive interview for the Fareed Zakaria GPS show that airs Sunday on CNN. "If we don't do that, we would be insulting democracy. And I pledge to respect the vote ...

Al Qaeda's second-in-command slams the "smiling Obama" and threatens attacks in the latest video posted on radical Islamist Web sites. Ayman al-Zawahiri uses the message to eulogize Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, an accused terrorist who said he was tortured into making a false connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. Human rights monitors said in May that he had died. "Obama claims to respect human rights and condemn torture, and here I will not ask him about the expansion of the Bagram ...

A powerful earthquake registering magnitude 6.4 struck the Indonesian island resort of Bali, leaving seven people hospitalized early Saturday, the head of the Health Ministry's crisis center said. Neighbors know what I do, and it seems to draw the men to me -- and they open up about certain things that the guys who actually come to see me with their wives just don't. Every time this happens, I end up saying the same thing: "Dude, don't tell me, tell ...

Friends and strangers across the country gathered on the streets and in schools, churches, bars and auditoriums to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States. "It's a great day to be an American," iReporter Roger Germann said at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, where revelers watched the inauguration on television monitors among exhibits of sharks and otters. Tuesday's inauguration brought together Americans from different walks of life, united in their hope that Obama ...