Chandra Bhan Prasad’s latest crusade is to argue that India’s economic liberalization is about to do the unthinkable: destroy the caste system.

Villagers navigated floodwaters on Friday in Jankipur, India. Aid workers said the official death toll, currently at 12, was low. An antipoverty agency estimated that 2,000 people had died.

A 17-year-old H.I.V. patient in a rural Zimbabwe hospital. The suspension of aid operations deprived more than a million people of assistance, aid donors said.

The American commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan offered to conduct a joint investigation on the loss of civilian life in the airstrikes from last week.

A Russian soldier stood guard on Friday while a Georgian man carried his nation’s flag during a protest by about 1,000 people in western Georgia against the Russian troop presence.

Protesters in Thailand ratcheted up their campaign to oust the government, stopping trains and blocking provincial airports, as well as waging an attack on police headquarters.

In Sarajevo, relatives of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre watched former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in the dock at the Hague.

One of the people detained during the Olympics was Zhang Wei, a Beijing resident who wanted to publicize the demolition of her home.

Russia will ban imports from 19 producers in the United States and warned that an additional 29 suppliers face a possible ban on health and safety grounds.

Australian investigators confirmed that an exploding oxygen cylinder blew a hole in the side of a Qantas airliner last month, but they are still unsure about why.

A bridge collapsed Kingston, Jamaica, on Friday after heavy rains from Tropical Storm Gustav.

Chinese police investigating a spate of attacks this month in the Xinjiang autonomous region killed six suspects and arrested three others, state media reported.

In a reversal, the Bush administration turned over documents that may support allegations by a Guantánamo Bay detainee that he was tortured while in American custody in Pakistan.

Cologne’s city council voted to allow construction of what will be one of Germany’s largest mosques, a plan vigorously opposed by many residents.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights condemned Sudan’s attack on a camp in Darfur for displaced persons “disproportionate and excessive.”

The abduction and sale of children in purported adoptions are rife in Nepal, a United Nations study released on Friday said.

Work at a factory that would make the Nano, promoted as the world’s cheapest car, stopped Friday after thousands of employees failed to turn up for work after protests by farmers.

Europeans’ confidence fell more than forecast this month as the economy teetered on the brink of a recession.

"Zen Shaolin," a music, dance and martial arts show, has a cast of 500 in a remote valley in China.