(CNN) -- Syria agreed Monday to Arab League demands that it allow observers into the country, but on the condition that the group immediately drop sanctions and agree to amendments that league officials have previously rejected. The league's deadline for Syria to respond to its demands to admit observers or face additional sanctions expired at midnight Sunday. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem sent a letter ...

Tens of thousands of HIV-affected households in Asia are facing "irreversible poverty" because of the cost of living with the disease, with women and children hardest hit, a UN report said Thursday. Catastrophic healthcare costs and the loss of employment opportunities due to widespread discrimination mean that many HIV-positive households across the region are in "rapid socio-economic decline," the report ...

Editor's note: Pete Cashmore is founder and CEO of Mashable, a popular blog about tech news and digital culture. He writes regular columns about social media and tech for CNN.com (CNN) -- Reports have surfaced again in the past week that Facebook is working on a phone. The latest news on the long-rumored project is that Facebook has abandoned its plan to work on both the hardware and software, as Apple does ...

What does this place mean to you?’ I ask the lady at the Wartburg – the immense castle that crouches over the crest of the mountain above the town of Eisenach. She doesn’t hesitate: ‘To me? To Germans? One thousand years of positive German history.’ Related slideshow: The quiet land of Thuringia The stress she put on it is understandable. Against her statement, the cacophony and catastrophe of a couple of d ...