BHP Billiton on Wednesday added its voice to tentative signs of a more broad-based global recovery when the Anglo-Australian mining group reported record iron ore production in the three months ended September.

Up to 30 million people are facing "a humanitarian disaster" as one of Africa's biggest lakes shrinks, a United Nations agency warned Thursday. Lake Chad was about the size of Maryland -- bigger than Israel or Kuwait -- in 1963, satellite images show. By 2001, it covered less than one-fifth of that area -- making it smaller than Delaware or Mauritius. The drying-up of the shallow lake is fueling conflict and migration, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said. Once ...

The death of a 14-year-old girl in England after she received a vaccination for Human Papilloma virus (HPV) has prompted a widespread freeze on the country's national vaccination program. More than 1.4 million girls have received the vaccination in England since the National Health Service (NHS) started administering it in September 2008. Natalie Morton's sudden death Monday occurred within hours after she received a shot of the vaccine Cervarix at the NHS at her school in Coventry. ...

Top U.S. officials say the underground nuclear facility that Iran revealed last week is illegal and likely intended for military purposes. "I think that certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that ... this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only ... because the Iranians kept it a secret," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so ...

Less than two months after he acknowledged that a model he had dated was pregnant with his child, Jude Law is a father -- again. A friend of the family told PEOPLE that Samantha Burke, the 24-year-old aspiring actress whom Law met while filming "Sherlock Holmes" in New York City last year, gave birth to a daughter Tuesday night. "I doubt Jude was there," said the source. "Besides the financial support, he's not involved." The source added: "Samantha ...

Enough Afghan opium to supply world demand for two years has effectively gone missing, with the Taliban suspected of stockpiling supplies in a bid to corner the market, the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has revealed. Afghanistan is the world's leading narcotics supplier. Earlier this month, a U.N. study revealed Afghanistan's opium production had dropped dramatically this year partly because of new aggressive drug-fighting tactics in the country. According to the UNODC report, production dipped by ...

President Obama warned Tuesday that the global economic recession could hinder the ability of countries to take necessary steps to combat climate change. "We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation's most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work," Obama told a U.N. summit on climate change. "And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach ...

A new breed of life-saving robot is being developed that take their shape and movement from snakes, and, it is hoped, will prove invaluable not only in search and rescue operations but also be a great asset to human surgery. (Full story) (CNN) -- Conventions are relics. They don't decide the nominees anymore -- that's been turned over to primary voters. No one pays much attention to party platforms except a few ideological activists. So why do we still ...

A massive fire engulfed the four-story offices of a major film company in central London on Friday, sending clouds of white smoke over the city skyline, the London fire department said. Two firefighters with minor injuries were taken to the hospital as a result of the Future Films building on Dean Street in the city's Soho district, London ambulance services said. The London Fire Brigade dispatched 12 engines and 55 firefighters to battle the blaze, which began befor ...

Eighteen months ago, when the world was awash in asset bubbles, there was perhaps no market more overheated than commodities. Prices of everything from iron ore to palm oil to corn reached dizzying heights. Crude oil nearly quintupled in five years; rice tripled in only five months. World Bank President Robert Zoellick called rising food and oil prices a "man-made catastrophe" that had the potential to quickly erase years of progress in overcoming poverty. Protests and riots over high prices for necessities erupted across the developing world. ...