? Thirteen other council members vote in favour
? UK and US react with fury to decision
? Homs death toll more than 200, say activists

Russia and China have vetoed a UN security council resolution calling for the Syrian president to step down, provoking a furious reaction.

All 13 other members of the council, including the US, France and Britain, voted in favour of the resolution, which backed an Arab peace plan aimed at stopping the violence in Syria. Russia and China blocked the resolution beca...

Newt Gingrich to meet backers while other Republican nomination candidates turn attention to remaining states

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney has coasted to victory in the latest of the party presidential contests, the Nevada caucuses, and increased the gap to his rivals.

CNN and other television networks projected that Romney had won the state after the caucuses closed.

Nevada brings his tally to three, on top of New Hampshire and Florida. Rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have one each...

Up to 120,000 Russian anti-government protesters demand political reform as Putin supporters stage counter-rally

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have braved temperatures of -18C in Moscow to march through the city shouting "Russia without Putin" and calling for a rerun of disputed elections.

In the latest of a series of mass gatherings since allegations of widespread government vote-rigging at the parliamentary poll on 4 December, the protesters walked an agreed route from Oktyabrskaya metro...

Five police officers and two civilians killed after car bomb blast at police headquarters, with at least 19 people wounded

A car bomb has exploded at the police headquarters in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, killing at least seven people.

The blast went off in a car park, according to Faisal Ahmad, a spokesman for the provincial government. Five police officers and two civilians were killed, and least 19 people were wounded, he said.

The blast was large enough to shatter the windows of nearby b...

Former Cuban president makes rare appearance to present 1,000-page book, Guerrilla of Time, charting his rise to power

Fidel Castro has made a rare public appearance to launch his memoirs.

The increasingly reclusive former Cuban president spent six hours presenting the two-volume book to an audience in Havana.

State television showed a smiling, animated Castro wearing a dark tracksuit over a blue plaid button-up shirt. Audio of him speaking was not broadcast, but the Communist party newspaper Gr...

Main rival Gingrich vows to fight on and accuses Romney camp of spreading rumours that he plans to quit

The Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney coasted to victory in the latest of the party presidential contests, the Nevada caucuses, but main rival Newt Gingrich vowed he will not be dropping out any time soon.

Romney's win widens the gap between him and Gingrich, the former senator Rick Santorum and the Texas congressman Ron Paul. The former Masscusetts governor has now won three of the five ope...

Dozens missing after vessel probably headed for Puerto Rico sank at night, say officials

An overloaded boat carrying migrants from the Dominican Republic overturned in the pre-dawn darkness on Saturday, killing at least 10 people and leaving dozens missing, officials said.

The migrants had left from near the town of Nagua, on the country's north-east coast, and were apparently headed to the US island territory of Puerto Rico, a frequent destination for migrants from the Dominican Republic.

Rescu...

Captain of team and his brother say violence in which more 70 fans died had been planned

Twin brothers who play for the football team Al-Masry, whose match against a rival team in Egypt ended in a massacre, claim the violence was encouraged by the police with the backing of the army.

Captain Karim Zekri and his brother, Mohamed, told the website CommentMidEast.com that there was strong evidence the bloodshed was planned. More than 70 people were killed and at least 1,000 injured in the violence...

The complacency of those who think their own drug-taking experiences have anything to do with today's drugs is desperately misguided

Tom Simons, a deputy head, has spoken about his 16-year-old son, Joe, who died of an MDMA overdose in a Bristol nightclub last year, saying that his son was the victim of a widespread "complacency" regarding drugs, that is "spreading like a cancer" through culture.

These are heartfelt words, but whose complacency is Mr Simons talking about?

If we're talking about y...

Unethical tourism needs to be stopped by stricter regulations and educating tourists

As the world has grown smaller while our passion for novelty has expanded, our curiosity about different cultures, particularly those relatively untouched by what we deem "civilisation", has grown exponentially. We come, we see and then we overrun wherever it is we have alighted.

The latest manifestation of our thirst for novelty as well as authenticity is causing some alarm ? the "human safari". These are orga...

The Congress party of Nehru and Indira Gandhi is accused of sacrificing free speech to make a comeback in India's most populous state

You can find the Islamic Centre of India in the Aishbagh neighbourhood of the north-eastern city of Lucknow, flanked by a Hindu temple and a wedding hall. Most evenings the call to prayer competes ? or coexists ? with the thumping bass of Bollywood dance tunes that accompany the nuptial celebrations of the city's middle classes. Often it is the centre itself tha...

As international tensions rise, critics close to the regime dismiss praise for A Separation

It has picked up award after award, including a Golden Globe last month for the best foreign language film and the Golden Bear at last year's Berlin film festival. And it has delighted ordinary Iranians grateful for some glory at a time when international tensions are rising and the country's regime is ever more isolated.

But not everyone in Tehran is happy that Asghar Farhadi's hugely successful work, A...

The Peronist leader combines glamour with political acumen, enormous popularity and a tough determination to beat down her rivals. And now she has put the Falklands back on the political agenda

She dismisses Britain as "a coarse and decadent colonial power" and has turned Argentina's once almost forgotten dispute with London over the Falkland Islands into a cornerstone of national policy, vowing to "continue battling tirelessly to gain recognition of what is already [Argentina's] sovereign rig...

The judiciary seems to have a skewed view of what the public has a right to know

As soon as a British politician imitates a Bible-belt Republican and puts pictures of his adoring wife and chubby-cheeked children on his election literature, you can guess what will dominate the next "news cycle". The press will reveal that while the leaflets were at the printers he took a campaign worker behind the filing cabinet, buried his head in her hair and whispered words to the effect of: "My wife doesn't...

Industrial recovery from the tsunami has been remarkable, but the competition from Korea's burgeoning electronics industry is becoming relentless

The circuit board of skyscrapers in Tokyo's tech district glints in the winter sunshine, with the Sony Technology Centre seemingly reaching up to the sky. It stands proudly alongside the other titans of Japan Inc such as Panasonic in the Shinagawa district ? but in reality these are crumbling empires, their very foundations chipped away by the aggres...

UN vetoes on Syria resolution 'disgust' U.S.

Russia and China have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down, in a vote that went against 13 council members and left the U.S. expressing disgust over the result.

Mitt Romney scored his third major victory in the Republican presidential race in Nevada Saturday, easily outpolling runnerup Newt Gingrich.

More than 600 protesters have taken to the streets of Prince Rupert, B.C., to oppose Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta's oilsands to Kitimat, a port on the northern B.C. coast.

Tens of thousands of Russians gathered in downtown Moscow on Saturday to demand an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule, casting a strong challenge to his bid to reclaim the presidency in March.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is leaving Monday for a visit to China, where he's likely to talk about Canada's natural resources, human rights and a gift of panda bears.

Ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro made a rare public appearance, spending six hours presenting a two-volume memoir to an audience at a Havana convention centre, state media reported.

Prince William is getting down to work in his most recent military deployment as a search-and-rescue pilot in the Falkland Islands.

One of the people accused in an alleged plot to smuggle members of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's family to Mexico was with an SNC-Lavalin executive when police took her into custody, CBC News has learned.

An outbreak of norovirus has forced two cruise ships in the Caribbean to make early returns to their home ports in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

A Fifth Estate report pieces together the details of the Costa Concordia disaster, with exclusive footage of passengers' chaotic evacuation and a reconstruction of the captain's risky manoeuvre, which took the cruise ship off course and ran it aground off the coast of Italy.

The streets of Rome were a rare shade of white Saturday after a snowfall blanketed the Italian capital, while heavy snow added to the misery of Eastern Europe's deadly cold snap.

No nation on Earth locks up more people than the U.S., Brian Stewart writes, adding it is one of the great scandals of our times.

Ben Gazzara, whose powerful dramatic performances brought an intensity to a variety of roles and made him a memorable presence in such iconic productions over the decades as the original Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway and the film The Big Lebowski, has died at age 81.

Iran's supreme leader pledged Friday to aid any nation or group that challenges Israel and said any military strikes over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program would damage U.S. interests in the Middle East "10 times over."

Hackers have taken over the websites of several law enforcement agencies worldwide in attacks attributed to the collective called Anonymous, including in Boston and in Salt Lake City, where police say personal information of confidential informants and tipsters was accessed.