Barack Obama often seems to have much of the planet at his feet in rapt attention to his every word. (CNN) -- Barack Obama often seems to have much of the planet at his feet in rapt attention to his every word. But the president as global oracle is about to meet his stony match -- in the vast and barren place that proved a graveyard for Napoleon and that has an ingrained suspicion of foreigners as an ...

The Guatemalan army stole at least 333 children and sold them for adoption in other countries during the Central American nation's 36-year civil war, a government report has concluded. Many of those children ended up in the United States, as well as Sweden, Italy and France, said the report's author and lead investigator, Marco Tulio Alvarez. In some cases, the report said, parents were killed so the children could be taken and given to government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad. ...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the Justice Department's decision to review waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques is politically motivated. Cheney said he opposes the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to ask a former prosecutor to review CIA interrogations of high-profile terrorism suspects. Cheney made clear he believes President Obama directed Holder to launch the review because the president is feeling pressure from left-wing Democrats. Cheney said the review will undermine the ...

Foreign influences are not to blame for Iran's post-election violence, the nation's supreme leader has said, according to state-run media.

Lloyd Blankfein, the 54-year-old chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, is powerfully perplexed. In the past six months, his investment-banking and securities-trading firm has roared ahead in profitability by taking risks — that other firms would not — for itself and its clients in an edgy market. It has paid back the billions of dollars, and then some, of taxpayer money the government forced it to take last October; raised billions of dollars in capital from private investors, including ...

President Obama took his health care message to talk radio Thursday, telling listeners of Philadelphia-based host Michael Smerconish that he wants to overhaul the nation's ailing health care system out of necessity rather than politics. Appearing with Smerconish for 30 minutes on a broadcast from the White House, Obama faced some of the persistent questions of conservative Americans and others concerned that overhauling the nation's health care system will unnecessarily expand government authority and drive up the deficit. The questions ...

The "humanitarian situation remains serious" in Zimbabwe amid cholera, starvation and a continuing economic crisis, a United Nations official said Wednesday at a World Humanitarian Day ceremony in Harare. "Although Zimbabwe is not facing armed conflict, humanitarian threats such as food shortages and outbreak of diseases such as cholera pose a significant challenge," said Agostinho Zacarias, U.N. Development Programme representative in the country. "The recent [cholera] epidemic resulted in 98,592 cumulative cases, including 4,288 deaths between August 2008 and July ...

Hundreds of gay men have been tortured and killed in Iraq in recent months, some by the nation's security forces, Human Rights Watch said Monday. Interviews with doctors indicate hundreds of men had been killed, but the exact number was unclear because of the stigma associated with homosexuality in Iraq, the New York-based watchdog group said in its report. "Iraq's leaders are supposed to defend all Iraqis, not abandon them to armed agents of hate," said Scott Long, director of ...

The Rev. Jesse Jackson ended a trip to the Ivory Coast on Friday, after he spoke to leaders from the nation's political parties and was honored as a prince by a tribe in the West African nation. Jackson said he met with President Laurent Gbagbo and leading members of two opposition parties, Henri Konan Bedie and Alassane Ouattara. Bedie is a former president of the nation and Ouattara is a former prime minister. Jackson said his mission was not to ...

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday expressed "serious concern" over the conviction of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi while the European Union adopted additional sanctions against the nation. "The members of the Security Council express serious concern at the conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and its political impact," John Sawers of Britain, Security Council president for the month of August, told reporters. Members of the council noted that the Myanmar government reduced Suu ...