British Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended the military mission in Afghanistan amid tough questions Wednesday from the opposition leader. Speaking the day after eight British soldiers killed in Afghanistan were laid to rest, Brown also defended the volume of equipment -- specifically helicopters -- supplied to troops in Afghanistan. Conservative Party leader David Cameron said the number of helicopters in Afghanistan is "simply insufficient" and is "the basic problem" facing British troops there. "He is right to raise issues of ...

U.S. President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI discussed current affairs, the Catholic Church's teachings and abortion as they met for the first time Friday, according to the White House and the Vatican. The president also handed the pontiff a letter from Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was diagnosed with brain cancer last year, and asked that the pontiff pray for the senator, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough said. Kennedy, 77, a Democrat, received the diagnosis after suffering a seizure ...

I doubt that any of us have ever considered any of our past vice-presidential candidates a sex symbol. But if recent Internet searches are any measure of the average American's current interest in politics, that may be changing. On the Richter scale of Internet search energy, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's announcement on Friday that he had chosen Sarah Palin, the current governor of Alaska, as his running mate measured a magnitude 10. If you compare the number ...

Brazilian playmaker Kaka was officially presented as a Real Madrid player, after being handed the number eight jersey in front of thousands of supporters and a huge media contingent at the club's Bernabeu stadium on Tuesday evening. An estimated 50,000-strong crowd, almost three times the anticipated number, turned up to watch the ceremony as Kaka was unveiled as Madrid's latest addition by club president Florentino Perez and honorary president Alfredo di Stefano. Latest transfer gossip and ...

The "good" news in the housing market is that more homes are selling. The number of existing homes sold in May was 2.4% higher than the number sold in April, which itself was higher than the number sold in March. Yes, prices are still falling, thanks largely to foreclosures and short sales, but at least the market is starting to show signs of life. Just don't pull out the noisemakers quite yet. The segment of the market that's ...

Iran's Guardian Council has ruled out the possibility of nullifying the results of the country's disputed presidential election, saying irregularities were reported before the balloting -- not during or after. The announcement, reported by Iran's government-funded Press TV on Tuesday, was another in a series of inconsistent stances by the council on how to handle the unrest stemming from the disputed June 12 race. "If a major breach occurs in an election, the Guardian Council may annul the votes that ...

A 19-year-old prostitute working in an apartment that doubles as a brothel said she has up to eight clients a day. Working in the southern boom city of Shenzhen, a special economic zone just north of Hong Kong, she told CNN she worries about getting AIDS, but has her own prevention measures. "I always use condoms or take an injection. The medicine can prevent sexually transmitted diseases," she said. "Some girls do not use prevention measures, but we don't talk ...

The number of swine flu cases is closer to reaching 30,000, the World Health Organization reported Friday, a day after declaring the start of a global pandemic. As of Friday, 29,669 cases of the H1N1 virus have been reported in 74 countries, the WHO said. The total number of deaths worldwide has reached 145. The latest figures come a day after the WHO said the virus was "unstoppable" and had become widespread enough to raise the global swine ...

A nervous calm settled over Peru on Monday night, three days after clashes between indigenous citizens and national police left more than 30 dead and 50 wounded. A 3 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew seemed to be holding, and both sides in the bloody episode said they wanted dialogue, not bullets. "The situation is much more tranquil," foreign minister Jose Andres Garcia Belaunde told CNN. "There's the possibility of entering into a dialogue." The violence started Friday when national police ...

The world's best female golfer, Lorena Ochoa of Mexico, has exclusively revealed to CNN that a meeting with Tiger Woods in her youth inspired her to become the player she is today. The pair first met at Tory Pines when both competing in the Junior World Championships, an event that Woods won a record six times and Ochoa has won five. The two then met again 15 years later at the Golf Writer's Association of America Awards where both were ...