Heartbreaking texts from students on sinking S. Korea ferry

Regardless of any personal opinions one may have about the validity of Mr. Bundy’s claims, the incident provides a case study of what is likely to be many future armed confrontations between activist groups and agents of the federal government.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday admitted for the first time that Russian soldiers were present on the Crimean peninsula before and during the referendum that backed rule from Moscow.

Palestinians gathered across the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday for rallies of solidarity with Israeli-held prisoners, as peace talks near collapse after the Jewish state refused to free long-serving inmates.

It has been there, a large blot on the horizon of the Italian island of Giglio, since Jan. 13 of 2012, over 27 months. But Italy's environmental minister, Gian Luca Galetti, said Wednesday that the Costa Concordia, now upright, will soon be towed away.

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Thursday joined a phone-in with Russian President Vladimir Putin, quizzing him over the extent of Moscow's surveillance activities.

Barren tundra, "nothingness," frigid space – just some of the ways most Canadians would describe the northern territories.

Russian President Vladimir Putin left the door open to intervening in Ukraine Thursday in a thinly-veiled threat that coincided with the opening of crunch Geneva talks on the escalating crisis.

India hosted its biggest day of voting on Thursday with the ruling Congress party battling to stem a further slide in the polls against the opposition Hindu nationalists after another week of damaging headlines.

Cannes film festival organisers on Thursday unveil their pick of the A-listers and art house "auteurs" chosen to take part in this year's movie extravaganza on the French Riviera.

In the Bab Tuma district of Syria's capital Damascus, Fadi Mayal dreams of returning home to the ancient Christian town of Maalula which was retaken by government forces this week.

Ukrainian troops killed three pro-Russian militants in the country's tense southeast early Thursday, just hours ahead of key talks in Geneva seeking to ease the escalating crisis in the former Soviet republic.

A planned meeting between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators has been postponed for one day after violence in the West Bank and in Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority acknowledged Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused Ukraine's new authorities of driving the country towards the abyss but said that dialogue was the only way out of the intensifying crisis.

In a blatant act of defiance of the United Nation's International Court of Justice ruling in March, Japan is showing they have every intention of resuming whaling in the Antarctic Ocean.

Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, running for re-election on Thursday, cast his ballot from a wheelchair at a polling station in Algiers.

The US state of Texas executed a man for stabbing to death his ex-girlfriend, her young son and her mother, state prison authorities said.

Survivors of last year's devastating Australian bushfires met with Prince William and his wife Catherine on Thursday as the royal couple visited the Blue Mountains.

A Chinese court jailed a blogger for three years on Thursday, state media reported, the first person to be sentenced in a government-led crackdown on so-called Internet rumours.

The pin-drop silence as the student's name was read out was broken by a piercing scream of anguished recognition as her shattered parents clutched each other in the cold, harbour gymnasium.

Reports from South Korea are contradictory but it now appears that up to 300 passengers, most are high-school students, are unaccounted for on a ferry that sank Wednesday. Only four are confirmed dead but that number is expected to rise.

Negotiators for Israel and the Palestinian Authority plan to meet Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to save failing peace talks scheduled to expire at the end of April.

A veteran drug baron has taken over Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel, apparently averting a war of succession after the capture of kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, US security officials told AFP.

Air pollution is known for its effects on the health and well being of people all around, but now reports have indicated that the bad air in Asia is now causing the severity of storms in the Pacific to increase.

An overnight US airstrike has killed three innocent Afghan civilians, the war-torn Central Asian nation's president claimed on Tuesday.

A mini-submarine hunting for wreckage of a missing Malaysian airliner has completed its first full mission at the third attempt, officials said Thursday, as seabed data it retrieved was being analysed.

On Tuesday, Judge Pablo Ruz at the Spanish National Court defied pressure to scrap a probe into alleged torture in the United States prison camp in Guantanamo Bay which targets former U.S. president George W. Bush.

The Ukraine crisis has shifted Poland's campaign for next month's European elections, boosting the governing centre-right party's chances as its prime minister reassures voters nervous about Russia's next move.

There is something happening in America as the Cliven Bundy drama unfolds, and a grazing fee dispute in Nevada threatens to turn into a bloodbath.

Jordanian air force fighter jets destroyed a number of combat vehicles Wednesday as they tried to enter the kingdom from war-hit Syria by crossing the border, the army said.

Moldova's pro-Russian breakaway region of Transdniestr on Wednesday called on Russia and the international community to recognise its independence, as fears grew that it could become a new flashpoint in East-West tensions.

The Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram were taken to a stronghold of the Islamist group, parents said on Wednesday, as the military confirmed that 129 students had been abducted.

The Pakistani Taliban Wednesday said they would not extend a ceasefire called to help negotiations with the government but said they were still committed to the peace talks process.

Howard G. Buffett, the son of investment guru Warren Buffett, has pledged to provide a helicopter for anti-poaching activities in Tanzania. The aircraft will be deployed initially at the Selous Game Reserve.

A passenger ship with more than 476 people onboard is sinking off the southern coast of South Korea. About 325 of those on the ship were high-school students. An evacuation is underway and reports say two have died while others are missing.

Ukraine's defence ministry said on Wednesday that pro-Russian militants had taken two of its soldiers "hostage" in the separatist eastern region of Lugansk.

South Korea and Japan held rare high-level talks Wednesday on the extremely sensitive issue of wartime sex slavery, which has contributed to a virtual freeze in diplomatic ties.

Jordanian warplanes destroyed "camouflaged" vehicles on Wednesday as they tried to cross into the kingdom from war-ravaged Syria, in the first such strikes since the conflict erupted three years ago.

Pop star Miley Cyrus has been hospitalized and has had to cancel a concert in the US state of Missouri, the venue said.

Two bodies have been recovered and 368 people rescued from a South Korean ferry that capsized at sea Wednesday with 477 passengers and crew on board, a senior government official said.