A three-day widely publicised immigration raid by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office left the city of Mesa like a ghost town. Small businesses closed. Workers stayed home to avoid being pulled over and questioned for documents.

Israel enjoys closer relations with the European Union than almost any other foreign country - and work on deepening ties with Israel continues, even as its oppression of the Palestinian people worsens.

A handful of recent clashes between Muslims and Christians has again raised the spectre of sectarian discord in Egypt. The incidents, though relatively minor, highlight longstanding tensions between the country's Muslim majority and its Christian minority.

After eight years of communist rule, four Moldovan opposition parties won a majority percentage of parliamentary seats during Wednesday's nationwide elections.

With its long, dry summers, Lebanon's diminishing woodlands are devastated by wild fires every year - and this year is no exception.

Banks bailed out with U.S. taxpayer money, like Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp, are raking in money by charging 150 percent interest and more on short-term, payday loans to people with no savings, consumer advocates say.

Today, the population of New Orleans is still about 175,000 people fewer than it was before Hurricane Katrina hit four years ago next month. Along with concerns about jobs and housing costs, the city's vulnerability to flooding has weighed heavily on the minds of many evacuees, many of whom have not returned.

A poll of 19 nations released here Wednesday reveals that majorities in most countries believe climate change should be a high priority for their governments, but relatively few thought that their leaders were doing enough about the problem.

The discovery of the remains of two victims of the 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay has opened a new chapter in the investigation of human rights crimes committed by the regime.

Somalia, a perpetually violence-prone country described as one of the world's failed states, may go the way of Iraq.