The Vietnam War has claimed its victims in various dreadful ways, but the death last week of Lewis B. Puller Jr. seemed particularly haunting. Puller, the son of the most decorated member of the Marine Corps in its history, served in Vietnam as a Marine combat leader. Both his legs and part of his hands were blown off when he stepped on a booby trap. He lived, and he became an attorney at the Pentagon and a respected veterans activist. ...

The news from Japan continues to be grim. While the world's attention remains fixed on the catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and on the brave efforts to stop radiation from leaking into the air, sea and land, the toll from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami continues to rise. As I write this column, the official count is 11,232 dead and 16,361 missing, making the disaster the worst natural calamity that a rich nation has suffered in many ...

It is not every day that the military chief of the world's emerging superpower stops by a tiny Himalayan nation. So when General Chen Bingde, Chief of General Staff of China's People's Liberation Army, touched down in Kathmandu on March 23, all of Nepal was watching. Chen didn't disappoint: he signed a military-aid deal worth $20 million and promised that there was more to come. He also took the chance to comment on Chinese-Nepali relations, saying that ...

"Hotel Rwanda" star Don Cheadle got a first-hand view of horror when he traveled to the devastated Darfur region of Sudan in 2005.

Two senior rebel leaders in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta region accepted a government offer of amnesty to militants who disarm. (CNN) -- Whenever President Obama has traveled overseas and offered pointed and direct assessments of the United States, some of them critical, Republicans have ripped him for criticizing America, saying a president should always defend the United States. So I want to hear the explanation by these so-called patriots of their giddy behavior over the United States losing the 2016 Olympic ...

After last year's war between Russia and Georgia, which left at least 250 people dead and parts of Georgia in ruin, both countries were eager to point the finger of blame at one another for starting the conflict. On Wednesday, an independent investigating team issued a highly anticipated report saying that neither country can escape fault. In the 1,100-page report, the investigators said that Georgia fired the first shots in the August 2008 conflict when it launched an attack on the breakaway region of South ...

Family members of one of the three hikers detained in Iran are heartened and hopeful over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's willingness to ask jurists to handle the case in a timely manner and weigh "maximum leniency" for their release. "We are encouraged by the recent statements of the president that he wants to deal with this matter expeditiously," said Alex Fattal, brother of hiker Josh Fattal. Alex Fattal, who spoke to CNN's "American Morning" on Wednesday with his mother Laura ...

A suspected missile strike from a U.S. Predator drone killed at least four people in a house in Pakistan's North Waziristan region early Saturday. The attack, which occurred in the Mir Ali subdivision in the village of Ali Khel, was one of several to hit the country Saturday. Six people were injured in Saturday's attack, the fourth suspected U.S. strike on Pakistani soil in November. The names of the victims have not been released. It is also not known ...

Suspected Taliban militants blew up a bridge early Tuesday in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, suspending NATO supply lines. The blast occurred about 6 a.m. Tuesday in the Khata Kushta area of Jamrod in the Khyber Agency in Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The bridge connected Landi Kotal and Jamrod. Transport has been suspended, and authorities are assessing damages. Engineers also are on location and work is under way to open a temporary route. Details were unclear on ...

The State Department is sticking with a strict no-new-settlements policy toward Israel, its spokesman said Thursday, but he held out the possibility that Israelis and Palestinians might eventually take a different path. "The position that the secretary has stated remains our position," spokesman P.J. Crowley said at his daily briefing. "And we continue to discuss with Israel and with the other parties what they have to do on the settlement issue." But he added that, in the end, Israel and ...