Everybody, it seemed, had heard the stories, and could relay the same horrific details about Syrian soldiers allegedly raping women and girls with cruel impunity. There were ugly accounts, told by many refugees from the northern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour, some of whom had crossed into nearby Turkey, and by others who remained in a strip of Syrian territory hugging the Turkish border. Soldiers had abducted several beautiful young women from the town, they said, enslaved them ...

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while ...

When hundreds of thousands of Catholics gather in Rome Sunday for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, not everyone will be celebrating. For the victims of sexual abuse by predatory priests, the ceremony — a major step towards sainthood — is too much too soon for a Pontiff they say failed to adequately confront the crimes committed by members of his church. "It's the rubbing of salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of ...

The image of seven corpses of young men and women who had been tortured, murdered and dumped in a car was depressingly familiar in drug war torn Mexico. But unlike thousands of other killings, one victim of last week's multiple homicide in the spa town Cuernavaca had a well-known father and his grief gained national attention. The journalist and poet Javier Sicilia led a march to commemorate the death of his son and friends, who appear to be ...

The uprisings sweeping the Arab world haven't only toppled dictatorships. Gone, too, are the old stereotypes of Arab women as passive, voiceless victims. Over the past few months, the world has seen them marching in Tunisia, shouting slogans in Bahrain and Yemen, braving tear gas in Egypt, and blogging and strategizing in cyberspace. Egyptian activist Asmaa Mahfouz, 26, became known as "The Leader of the Revolution" after she posted an online video call to arms, telling young ...

When Iranian Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work as a lawyer and human-rights activist, the regime in Tehran faced a dilemma. The award infuriated the country's hard-liners, but the regime privately acknowledged that it had also earned Ebadi the admiration of most Iranians. Reluctant to arrest or openly target such a popular figure, the government tolerated Ebadi's activities and limited itself to low-level harassment of her legal office. That tacit policy has now ...

Thousands flocked to Spain's capital Saturday to protest the Socialist government's move to make it easier to get an abortion. The anti-abortion protest, themed "each life is important," began at 5 p.m. in central Madrid and many leading conservative politicians attended, including former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Local media estimated the crowd in the tens of thousands. The protest was prompted by a proposed law that would ease restrictions on obtaining an abortion. Since 1985, abortion has ...

Five days after a deadly earthquake and tsunami slammed into the Samoan Islands, burying parts of the islands under a sea of mud and debris, U.S. agencies continued Saturday helping residents dig out and providing relief to disaster victims. About 300 responders are on the ground in American Samoa, including personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the American Red Cross, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Health and Human Services, according to those agencies. The ...

Lisa Gibson -- who lost her brother in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing -- sat down the other day with the man many blame for the notorious attack: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. "I welcomed him to America," Gibson told CNN. The 39-year-old Colorado Springs lawyer said she and another relative of a Lockerbie victim went to see the controversial figure in New York on Wednesday, the same day he delivered a rambling speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Calling herself an ...

Susan Denise Atkins, a former member of the Manson family who killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate during a two-day killing spree in 1969, has died, according to a California corrections spokesman. She was 61. Atkins died at 11:46 p.m. PT Thursday (2:46 a.m. Friday ET) at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, said Terry Thornton with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Atkins, California's longest-serving female inmate, was suffering from terminal brain cancer. Since she entered prison ...