Posted: 7:36 AM Xi Jinping caps his rise to the helm of China at a time when calls are mounting for bold leadership to tackle faltering economic growth, unbridled corruption

Posted: 7:17 AM Syrian rebels routinely kill captured soldiers and suspected regime informers, human rights monitors said Thursday, warning of mounting war crimes committed by those trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

Posted: 7:16 AM The selection of former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as pope is already energizing the world's most Catholic continent, which has been rapidly losing its faithful.

Posted: 7:14 AM France is ready to help arm Syrian opposition fighters and is pushing for an urgent European Union meeting on lifting its arms embargo on Syria, the French foreign minister said Thursday.

Posted: 7:11 AM Ieng Sary, who co-founded the communist Khmer Rouge regime responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s

Posted: 8:42 AM North Korea's first public, senior-level mention of South Korea's first female president ended up being a sexist crack.

Posted: 8:39 AM The papal conclave is steeped in mystery — and the church likes it that way. Elaborate ritual and veils of secrecy, after all, are fundamental to the papal mystique, seen as the glue the binds worshipers in faith.

Posted: 8:37 AM Seven Saudi men convicted of theft, looting and armed robbery were beheaded on Wednesday, according to the country's official news agency.

Posted: 8:36 AM Mohammed works at a Beirut supermarket where he waits on customers and carries their groceries home for a small tip that the 14-year-old saves to send later to his family in a village in northeastern Syria.

Posted: 8:35 AM New Zealand lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill allowing same-sex marriage Wednesday, all but assuring that it will soon become law.

Posted: 8:16 AM New Zealand lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill allowing same-sex marriage Wednesday, all but assuring that it will soon become law.

Posted: 6:21 AM Ninety-one percent of people living in Asia have improved access to clean water, a remarkable achievement over the last two decades in the world's most populous region.

Posted: 6:19 AM After the best-selling Irish novelist Josephine Hart died from ovarian cancer in 2011, her husband was so devastated he often went to her grave to have breakfast.

Updated: 6:45 AM Electing a pope is a political as well as a religious event. There are serious fault lines in the College of Cardinals. Some are traditionalists, many of them in the entrenched Vatican establishment.

Updated: 3:17 PM Black smoke has poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that cardinals have failed to elect a pope on their first try.

Posted: 7:40 AM Kim Jong Un told artillery troops stationed near disputed waters that have seen several bloody clashes in past years that "war can break out right now," according to a report by North Korean state media.

Posted: 7:39 AM The farmer had been seeking redress for decades over a land grab by village officials. Tired of her complaints, police saw the labor camp as a quick way to get rid of her.

Posted: 7:37 AM China says it is willing to cooperate with the United States in cybersecurity after the U.S. called on it to take "serious steps" to stop cyberattacks.

Posted: 7:34 AM The body of a man who died in a New Delhi jail while in the midst of a high-profile rape trial was released to his family Tuesday after a post-mortem exam

Posted: 7:17 AM The American special operations forces remain in the province where dozens of villagers accuse them and their Afghan partners of intimidation through unprovoked beatings, mass arrests and forced detentions.

Posted: 7:15 AM China's leaders are promising to clean up the country's neglected environment — a pledge that sets up a clash with political pressures to keep economic growth strong.

Updated: 6:57 AM The 115 cardinal electors will return to their hotel-like quarters for lunch before shutting themselves into the Sistine Chapel for the first day of the actual papal conclave.

Posted: 9:41 AM Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles on Sunday launched what many consider a doomed candidacy to replace Hugo Chavez with a no-holds-barred attack against the government

Updated: 9:40 AM Several cardinals were signed up to speak at the closed-door morning session, an indication that the red-capped prelates still have plenty to discuss before sequestering themselves Tuesday afternoon

Posted: 9:38 AM North and South Korea staged dueling war games Monday as threatening rhetoric from the rivals rose to the highest level since North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island in 2010.