WASHINGTON - A tiny portion of the charges filed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in immigration courts were related to terrorism or national security. The research group the Transactional Records Action Clearinghouse said in the past three years, Homeland Security charged 12 people with terrorism, or 0.0015 percent of the cases it filed in immigration courts, CNN reported. "The DHS claims it is focused on terrorism. Well that's just not true," David Burnham, ... [full story]

BANGKOK - Authorities in Thailand investigated a series of bomb blasts that injured 13 people, including women and children, in the southern city of Hat Yai. Seven bombs went off simultaneously Sunday night at restaurants and stores in the downtown business area, the Bangkok Post reports. Most of the explosive devices were hidden in motorcycles and garbage cans but authorities say one bomb was thrown onto the grounds of a hotel. Authorities were able to ... [full story]

SDEROT, Israel - Rockets hit the southern Israeli city of Sderot where Defense Minister Amir Peretz was voting in the Labor Party primary Monday. Peretz had told Labor Party members in his hometown to vote to "prove that Hamas does not scare them," The Jerusalem Post reported. Two Sderot resident have been killed by Qassam rockets as the city has come under a barrage of rocket attacks from the West Bank in recent weeks. Several ... [full story]

BELGRADE, Serbia - A group of 53 people went on trial before a Belgrade court Monday, charged with embezzling $8.6 million in toll money from Serbia's main highway. The group is accused of the country's biggest "electronic robbery" in which they allegedly used false payment cards, special devices and software programs on two major toll gates on the highway leading from Belgrade to the southern city of Nis, Belgrade's B92 radio reported. Their software system ... [full story]

NEWPORT, Ore. - Authorities in Oregon are struggling to explain how a 40-foot whale that washed ashore died and what they should do with the massive mammal. The beached animal had no visible signs of deadly trauma and authorities were at a loss on how to remove the California gray whale from the rocky terrain where it wound up, KGW-TV of Portland, Ore., reported Monday. The animal likely washed ashore Saturday or Sunday, wildlife officials ... [full story]

TRIPOLI, Libya - A Libyan court has acquitted five Bulgarian nurses, already sentenced to death in another trial, on slander charges. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov in Sofia Sunday welcomed the Libyan court's ruling as a positive move giving hope for a just outcome of the nurses' ordeal, the Sofia News Agency reported Monday. The five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor, who have spent eight years in a Libyan prison, went on trial before the ... [full story]

AMRITSAR, India - India's Sikhs, offended by an advertisement they felt blasphemed their revered guru,have won an apology from a religious sect that issued the piece. The controversy, which led to clashes between Sikhs and members of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect in Punjab and neighboring Haryana state, resulted from an advertisement in which the sect's leader was accused of being dressed like Guru Gobind Singh, one of the Sikh religion's most revered leaders. The ... [full story]

BAGHDAD - Diplomats from the United States and Iran met in Baghdad Monday in the first formal talks between the two nations in 27 years. While no agreements were reached during the talks on the war in Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said later the talks "proceeded positively," The New York Times reported. Crocker met with Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qumi in the Baghdad offices of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. ... [full story]

BAGHDAD - Members of a U.S. Army battalion serving in Iraq say they have lost their belief in the mission and wonder why we are helping people who are trying to kill us. Staff Sgt. David Safstrom told the New York Times his pivotal moment came when a man killed setting a roadside bomb turned out to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army. "I thought: 'What are we doing here? Why are we still ... [full story]

RAMADI, Iraq - The U.S. military in Iraq is trying to get judges in Ramadi, who left the courts following death threats in 2005, to return to work. A meeting last month between U.S. officials and 14 local judges "went very well, and we are making real progress towards the resumption of a judicial system," U.S. Army Maj. Ted Houdek, an army legal officer, told the Los Angeles Times. The lack of a court system ... [full story]