In mid-March, as a White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan was nearing completion, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met in a secure Pentagon room for their fortnightly video conference with Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top…

BAGHDAD, Aug. 16 — Human Rights Watch will urge in a report to be released Monday that the Iraqi government do more to protect gay men, saying militiamen have killed and tortured scores in recent months as part of a social cleansing campaign.

TOKYO, Aug. 17 — Japan announced Monday that its economy has returned to growth, bouncing back from what had been the steepest slide of any industrialized nation during the global economic crisis.

TEHRAN, Aug. 16 — Iranian authorities put on trial Sunday a group of demonstrators who said they were directed by campaign officials of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to destroy public property in the chaotic aftermath of the June 12 election.

BANGKOK, Aug. 16 — Burmese authorities have released the American whose uninvited visit to the home of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi led to her being sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest, allowing him to leave the country Sunday with Sen. James Webb (D-Va.).

KABUL, Aug. 16 — After failing to show up for the first televised debate, President Hamid Karzai took on two rivals on Sunday night who described his government as mired in corruption and deficient in bringing jobs and security to Afghanistan.

BUENOS AIRES — Workers at the government’s National Institute of Statistics call it crass manipulation: Their agency, under pressure from above, altered socioeconomic data to reflect numbers palatable to the presidency. Inflation and poverty miraculously dropped, they said in interviews, and the…

JERUSALEM, Aug. 15 — The deadly shootout in a Gaza Strip mosque Friday between members of the ruling Islamist Hamas movement and a militant splinter group may signal further challenges to Hamas’s authority in Gaza as it tries to reconcile the demands of running a government with its policy of armed…

NEW DELHI, Aug. 15 — One of India’s biggest movie stars said he was detained and questioned at Newark Liberty International Airport early Saturday, causing outrage across his home country and reigniting discussion of the hardships many Indians say they face while traveling abroad.