The House of Grace

As President Obama convenes the first direct Middle East peace talks in 20 months, the question many observers here and in the region are asking is what, if anything, makes this round any more hopeful than the last.

International food prices have risen to their highest level in two years, fueled in part by a drought in Russia that lifted the cost of wheat, a U.N. agency said Wednesday.

Even as President Barack Obama was announcing the end of combat in Iraq, American soldiers were sealing off a northern village early Wednesday as their Iraqi partners raided houses and arrested dozens of suspected insurgents.

Floods have displaced nearly 60,000 people in the last month in south Sudan with many at risk of malaria and other diseases, the semi-autonomous region's government said Tuesday.

The controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero may not only affect those in the U.S., but also Christians living in Muslim countries.

Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, much bigger in potential than the one that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs.

On the last day of the official U.S. combat mission in Iraq, there was no dancing in the streets, no celebratory gunfire and no sense that a milestone had been reached.

Iraq is preparing to buy as much as $13 billion in American arms and military equipment, a huge order of tanks, ships and hardware that U.S. officials say shows Iraqi-U.S. military ties will be tight for years to come.

Iran says it has set a 2020 target date to build its first experimental nuclear fusion reactor, a feat that has yet to be achieved by any nation.

Mr Blair says he understood the new war was ideological, but admits that at the time he did not fully understand the history of Islam. He admits he underestimated the “hold of this extremism”.

Iran has sought to distance itself from harsh remarks by a hard-line newspaper, which called France's first lady a "prostitute" for condemning the stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery.

The White House announced Monday it is hitting North Korea with sanctions aimed at providers of weapons, luxury goods and various illicit financial services that benefit the elite in the closed communist country.

The International Monetary Fund on Monday further loosened its lending rules in an effort to prevent future financial crises from spreading around the world.

Vice President Biden was to sit down with Iraq's political leaders today to mark the end of the American combat mission and to encourage Iraq to end a political impasse and form a new government.

Iran unveiled a new artillery shell on Sunday, vastly improving its arsenal's range. Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the new 130 millimeter advanced artillery shells will be far outstrip the previous capabilities of the Islamic Republic's army, Press TV reported on Sunday. "This ammunition uses solid propellants and act like ballistic missiles," the Iranian defense minister noted.

Two men taken off a Chicago-to-Amsterdam United Airlines flight in the Netherlands have been charged by Dutch police with "preparation of a terrorist attack," U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News.