Guinea President Lansana Conte, who has ruled the African nation with an iron hand since seizing power in a coup nearly a quarter century ago, has died following a lengthy illness, the National Assembly president said Tuesday.

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In crumbling, largely Christian Zimbabwe, where a cholera epidemic has killed more than 1,100 people, Christmas is just another day of suffering.

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A reigning Mexican beauty queen from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled guns and ammunition, police said.

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After five and a half years of war, there are some signs that life in Iraq is getting back to normal if ever so slowly. But one sign is chugging oh-so-slowly along. Elizabeth Palmer gets a ride on the Baghdad Express.

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The Iraqi parliamentary speaker resigned, ending a long-running power struggle and allowing lawmakers to authorize British and other non-U.S. foreign troops to remain in the country into 2009.

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The Vatican is endorsing new technology that brings the book of daily prayers used by priests straight onto iPhones.

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European nations have begun intensive discussions both within and among their governments on whether to resettle detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, as a significant overture to the incoming Obama administration.

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New Zealand's national symbol -- the small, flightless kiwi -- is an endangered species, now being nursed back to healthy numbers by an innovative conservation effort not far from the bustle of Wellington.

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Christians celebrated Bethlehem's merriest Christmas in eight years, with Israeli and Palestinian forces cooperating to make things run smoothly. The festivities in the West Bank town contrasted sharply with Hamas-run Gaza.

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Some of the U.S. troops in Iraq aren't just focusing on retaining control of the region - they're concentrating on training the Iraqi National Police. Elizabeth Palmer looks at whether they're ready to lead once the U.S. troops withdraw.

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When U.S. hospitals upgrade, old equipment is usually bound for the trash heap. Now, a new program is putting it to good use by sending it to African nations in need, where it is being used to save lives, Dr. Jon LaPook reports.

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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will deliver a Christmas Day broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 television, occupying a slot used to provide an often controversial counterpoint to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional annual message.

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The newly resigned Iraqi parliament speaker on Wednesday praised the journalist who threw shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush and said the legislature should have supported him.

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Bethlehem marked Christmas on Thursday with crowds of tourists joining local Palestinian Christians in Jesus' traditional birthplace, as the West Bank town basked in its once-a-year appearance in the world spotlight.

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Iraq's Christians, a small minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.

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The Army needs to add at least 30,000 active-duty soldiers to its ranks to fulfill its responsibilities around the world without becoming stretched dangerously thin, senior Army officials warn, reports the Washington Post.

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Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, bisecting the coastal territory and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas gained momentum.

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The U.N. met for four hours Saturday night after Israel began a ground incursion into Gaza, but failed to reach agreement on any statement, and rejected a Libyan-sponsored proposal calling for an immediate ceasefire.

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A female suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of pilgrims worshipping at a revered Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 65. There were fears the death toll could rise further.

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A series of powerful earthquakes at dawn killed at least three people and injured dozens more in remote eastern Indonesia on Sunday, cutting power lines and badly damaging buildings.

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Pope Benedict XVI in his Christmas message Thursday warned that the world was headed toward ruin if selfishness prevails over solidarity during tough economic times for both rich and poor nations.

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The Jewish state suddenly resumed letting in humanitarian aid despite threatening large military operations against Gaza militants.

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Sources say thousands being switched from the Afghan border, and the pursuit of Al Qaeda, as post-Mumbai attack tensions ratchet up between the nuclear powers.

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The parents of a rabbi and his wife killed in last month's terror attacks in Mumbai lit a 16-foot public menorah Thursday outside the building where their children lived in the Indian city.

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A bomb tore through a busy square in Baghdad at midday Saturday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 54, the Iraqi army said, demonstrating the precariousness of the relative calm that Iraq has been enjoying for months.

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Israeli warplanes rained more than 100 tons of bombs on security sites in Hamas-ruled Gaza Saturday and early Sunday, killing at least 230 people in one of the Mideast conflict's bloodiest assaults in decades.

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Four suspected al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents broke out of jail during a riot Friday that killed six police officers and seven prisoners in the western city of Ramadi, police said.

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Crowds of thousands swept into the streets of cities around the Middle East on Sunday to denounce Israel's air assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.

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A suicide bomber tried to attack a meeting of tribal elders and blew himself up near an Afghan primary school, killing 14 children and wounding 58 people, the U.S. military said.

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The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, but its power is now spreading north to the doorstep of Kabul.

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Pakistan told India on Saturday it did not want war and was committed to fighting terrorism - a move apparently aimed at reducing tensions after Pakistan moved troops toward their shared border.

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Anti-Israel protests have sprung up across the world in response to the Israel's three-day attack on Gaza, aimed at rooting out Hamas militants responsible for earlier rocket attacks. Many world governments have condemned Israel's actions.

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Pakistan's army chief stressed Monday the need to avoid conflict with India, days after he ordered troops toward the rivals' shared border amid tensions following last month's terror attacks on Mumbai.

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Attackers wielding machetes hacked to death dozens of people at a church in remote eastern Congo, witnesses said, and the Ugandan army accused the Lord's Resistance Army rebels of the massacre.

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A suicide blast outside the office of the governor of Afghanistan's Parwan province has killed at least two Afghan nationals and left 17 more injured. Afghan officials say the attack targeted an American convoy.

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Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip sent a deadly barrage of missiles flying deep into Israel, demonstrating that Hamas still has firepower three days into Israel's punishing offensive against Gaza.

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A suicide bomber killed 34 people in northwest Pakistan on Sunday while the target of another recent attack, the Marriott in Islamabad, partially reopened three months after a bombing at the luxury hotel left 54 dead.

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Nine people went on trial Monday in connection with China's tainted milk scandal, state media reported, following the announcement of steps to compensate the families of hundreds of thousands of children harmed by contaminated infant formula.

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Scottish police said they arrested a 35-year-old man in connection with the abduction of a nurse who was found tied up in the trunk of her car — where she may have been held for as long as 10 days.

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Israel is considering halting its Gaza offensive temporarily to give Hamas militants an opening to halt rocket fire on Israel, but coupled with the threat of a ground offensive if such a cease-fire does not hold, an Israeli defense official said.

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Pakistan says India has moved troops toward their shared border, following Islamabad's own redeployment of forces toward the frontier amid tensions over the Mumbai attacks. But officials keep talking about easing the faceoff.

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Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region far from the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive.

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A Japanese man who had been living in Terminal 1 of the Benito Juarez International Airport since Sept. 2 - for no apparent reason - left under equally mysterious circumstances.

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Search teams recovered the bodies of seven snowmobilers, a day after they were swept away by avalanches in western Canada's backcountry, police said. An eighth man was missing and believed dead.

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The renewed fighting between Israel and Hamas has a long back story, reports CBS News correspondent Sheila Macvicar.

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Israeli is keeping up a relentless aerial assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza, but their offensive has reached a turning point; they are now poised to move to the next "phase" of operations, which may well include ground forces entering the territory.

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Kim Jong Il attended a concert by North Korea's state orchestra, state media said, the latest official report to portray the reclusive leader as healthy amid speculation he suffered a stroke in August.

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The Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps says its "high time" his troops leave Iraq and take their battle skills to Afghanistan. "We are a fighting machine," Gen. James Conway tells CBS News, and the fight has relocated.

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A gunman wounded two Israelis working at a packed central Denmark shopping mall, Danish police said.

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Israel sent more troops to the Gaza border Wednesday, rapidly moving forward with preparations for a possible ground offensive as the next stage of its military assault on the coastal territory's Hamas rulers.

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Russia's state gas monopoly, Gazprom, said Wednesday that Ukraine has threatened to seize gas intended for European customers if no deal is reached on gas shipments to Ukraine starting Jan. 1.

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A record 151 U.S. forces died in Afghanistan in 2008, the deadliest year yet in a seven-year war that military officials say is likely to get even bloodier in 2009, as thousands more American troops pour into the country.

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The former chairwoman of the dairy company at the heart of China's tainted milk scandal went on trial Wednesday on charges of selling fake or substandard products, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

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The United States on expressed grave concern about the detention and interrogation in Iran of a prominent American academic, an incident that has led the National Academies of Science to suspend educational exchanges with Iranian institutions.

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The eighth and final body was found from a group of snowmobilers buried by weekend avalanches in western Canada's backcountry, police said.

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Hard-line Iranian student groups have appealed to the government to authorize volunteer suicide bombers to leave Iran and fight against Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

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A proposed U.N. Security Council resolution put forward by Arab nations that would have forced a cease fire between Israel and Gaza has been immediately rejected by the U.S., which labeled the draft "one-sided". Meanwhile, humanitarian concerns grow.

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The ceremonial handover of the heavily-fortified area of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein's presidential palace to Iraqi authorities was described by the country's prime minister as a restoration of Iraq's sovereignty.

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A suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft destroyed a vehicle in northwest Pakistan, killing at least three foreign militants, said intelligence officials.

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South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman, who was one of the few white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of racist rule, died. She was 91.

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A proposed U.N. Security Council resolution put forward by Arab nations that would have forced a cease fire between Israel and Gaza has been immediately rejected by the U.S., which labeled the draft "one-sided". Meanwhile, humanitarian concerns grow.

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Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said it cut all gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday morning after talks broke down over payments for past shipments and a price for 2009.

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Fidel Castro"s first military strike agains the Fulgencio Batista took place in eastern Cuba, near where Raul Castro will address a rally of government loyalists in a celebration of 50 years of revolutionary rule under Castro.

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Hundreds of thousands of revelers rang in 2009 from frigid Times Square as the famous Waterford crystal ball dropped, signaling the end of a historic and troubled year.

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