QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber struck a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this week, piling pressure on a U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by a flood crisis. Pakistan's Taliban claimed responsibility for the ...

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude hit New Zealand, 30 km (20 miles) west of Christchurch early on Saturday morning, causing no immediate reports of casualties but widespread damage, authorities said. The quake, which had a depth of 33 kms (20.5 miles), struck around 4.35 ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday urged Israel and the Palestinians to overcome the final obstacles to peace, saying their new talks may be a last chance to end the conflict. Clinton, speaking to Israeli and Palestinian television one day after direct peace talks ...

The blazes in the provinces on the Volga River southeast of Moscow followed wildfires that killed at least 54 in central Russia in July and August during Russia's worst heat wave ever recorded and prompted criticism of the government response. Fires fanned by high winds and months of drought ...

Guillermo Zavaleta and Juan Huerta, both members of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN), died in the crash in Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca, state security chief Javier Rueda told Milenio TV. The pilot was also killed, he added.

Soldiers were sent to the location after an airborne patrol sighted armed men outside a building. Fighting began when the men opened fire on the troops. Three people who presumably had been kidnapped by the gang were freed following the fighting. Two soldiers were wounded.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, wearing his green military cap and clothing like the commandant of old, made his first speech before the Cuban public Friday since falling ill in 2006, warning of the threat of nuclear war. Castro, 84, spoke from the same steps of the University ...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - More women are working and dying for powerful drug cartels in Mexico's most violent city as high unemployment along the U.S. border sucks desperate families into the lethal trade. Once almost unheard of in the macho world of drug trafficking, a record 179 women ...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - More than two dozen children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the hundreds of victims of a recent wave of rapes in the nation's conflict-torn east, the United Nations said on Friday. All but one of the 28 confirmed child victims were girls, and one of ...

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Boeing 747-400 cargo plane operated by United Parcel Service Inc crashed shortly after takeoff into a military compound near Dubai's airport on Friday, killing two crew members, authorities said. U.S. parcel delivery company UPS confirmed the crash of the plane, which was en ...