worldheadlines

Australian rowers were left questioning their luck in Olympic eight's races Monday after the rudder on the men's boat jammed, forcing the crew to veer at speed out of their lane and almost collide.
The dramatic maneuver occurred in the heat and the crew will have a second chance of making...

A man claiming to be a police detective tried to get an adult novelty shop to give him free X-rated videos, saying he wanted to make sure the performers weren't underage, authorities said.
He made three tries within nine days last month and was turned down each time. The store manager called...

Officials at the Erie Zoo say one of their new Amur tigers is too shy to explore a new $500,000 exhibit.
Nikki, a 370-pound male tiger, has refused to come out of his den into the public exhibit since it opened two months ago.
"He pokes his head out occasionally, but that's about...

One little girl had the looks. The other had the voice.
So in a last-minute move demanded by one of China's highest officials, the two were put together for the Olympic opening ceremony, with one lip-synching "Ode to the Motherland" over the other's singing.
The real singer, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, with her chubby...

King Abdullah of Jordan on Monday became the first Arab leader to visit Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, a landmark step towards reducing Baghdad's isolation among its Sunni Arab neighbors.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office released television footage showing the king embracing members of the Iraqi cabinet...

More than 200 Iraqi refugees living in Egypt returned home in style on Monday, repatriated on board Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plane at his personal request.
"Today 52 families, or 236 persons, settled in Egypt returned to Baghdad aboard the...

BAGHDAD — On Monday, King Abdullah II of Jordan became the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed in 2003.
Iraqi officials heralded the brief and previously unannounced visit as a sign that their Arab neighbors finally were shedding their fear of a government that they'd seen as religiously and ethnically divided.
"Our neighbors have started to...

Jordan's King Abdullah II held talks with Iraqi leaders on Monday on the first visit to Iraq by an Arab head of state since the 2003 US-led invasion, calling for an end to sectarian differences.
The monarch went immediately on...

The speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmud Mashhadani, was admitted to hospital in neighbouring Jordan on Tuesday after suffering heart problems, a hospital official said.
"Mashhadani is currently at (the military-run) Al-Hussein Medical Centre" in the Jordanian capital Amman, the...

U.S. presidential candidate John McCain on Saturday again accused his opponent Barack Obama of defeatism and said the Democratic senator from Illinois did not have what it took to be the country's commander in chief.
"Both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference is that I intend to win it first,"...

South Ossetia has historically enjoyed degrees of autonomy even within Imperial and Soviet Russia, and has attempted to gain independence a number of times in the past. It is a de facto independent republic within Georgia. While not officially recognized as an independent state by any other country or international body, South Ossetia has repeatedly stated it would settle for nothing...

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - Refugees from South Ossetia on Sunday described being shelled and shot at and forced to run for their lives -- leaving homes, family members and most of what they had behind.
They talked of hiding in the woods, being mocked by Georgian soldiers and passing the dead on the...

WASHINGTON - The Russian Bear is back, and the United States doesn't seem to be able to do much about it.
The United States saw trouble coming between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet republic turned nemesis, but didn't have enough leverage, focus or resolve to intervene. Even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a specialist on the old Soviet Union, may have...

WARSAW, Poland - Poland and other former Soviet satellites have expressed deep anxiety that the escalation of fighting between Russia and Georgia signals a resurgent Russia's willingness to use force to dominate the newly democratic region.
After fighting broke out last week in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, the presidents of Poland and the three Baltic states issued a joint statement...

WASHINGTON - Scrambling to find ways to punish Russia for its invasion of pro-Western Georgia, the United States and its allies are considering expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of powerful nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.
But with little leverage in the face of an emboldened Moscow, Washington and its friends have...