In Pakistan's rugged tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan, a quiet and persistent warning is circulating: The Taliban are returning.

Pakistan's own Taliban movement, which had in years past waged a violent campaign against the Islamabad government, has been emboldened by the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Bill Clinton arrived Sunday at his home in New York to continue recovering from an infection that left him in treatment for six days at a Southern California hospital, officials said.

The former president left the University of California Irvine Medical Center around 8 a.m. with Hillary Clinton on his arm. Dressed in jeans and a sports coat and wearing a face mask, he made his way out of the hospital slowly and stopped to shake hands with doctors and nurses lined up on the sidewalk.

U.S. officials are working with Haitian authorities to try to secure the release of 12 adults and five children with a U.S.-based missionary group who were abducted over the weekend by a gang notorious for killings, kidnappings and extortion.

The group was snatched by the 400 Mawozo gang, which controls the Croix-des-Bouquets area east of the capital of Port-au-Prince, police inspector Frantz Champagne told The Associated Press on Sunday. The abduction happened Saturday in the community of Ganthier, which lies in the gang's area. It was blamed for the kidnapping of five priests and two nuns earlier this year.

The father of a man held for the fatal stabbing of a British lawmaker during a meeting with local voters told British media he was shocked and "traumatized" by his son's arrest, as police continued questioning the suspect under terrorism laws.

Dozens of mourners attended a special church service Sunday in memory of 69-year-old Conservative lawmaker David Amess, who was stabbed to death Friday in what police have described as a terrorist attack.

Wearing a mock Arab headdress, Chris Greenslade, between swigs from a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, was proudly embracing his club's new status as one of the richest in world sports.

"We're Saudis," the 41-year-old Newcastle fan said. "We can afford anything."

Israel does not want war with Hizbullah but is prepared to face about 2,000 rockets a day if conflict breaks out, a senior Israeli military official told AFP.

In May this year, the Israeli army fought an 11-day war against Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip, who fired around 4,400 projectiles towards the Jewish state.

At least 18 people have died a day after torrential rains swept through villages and flooded roads in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Officials said rescuers recovered the bodies in two of the worst-hit districts, Kottayam and Idukki, where the heavy downpours triggered massive landslides, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

Syria's government and opposition in the war-torn country have agreed to start drafting constitutional reforms, the U.N. Syria envoy announced Sunday, a major step after a nine-month hiatus of talks and several fruitless rounds.

U.N. special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen didn't say what was behind the agreement or offer details of what comes next. The drafting sessions formally begin Monday.

The death of a former Syrian Druse lawmaker, allegedly by Israeli sniper fire, could mark a new phase in what Israel calls its war against Iranian entrenchment in neighboring Syria.

Syria's state-run news agency said that Midhat Saleh was fatally shot Saturday in Ein el-Tinneh, a village along the Israeli frontier in the Golan Heights where he ran a Syrian government office. Israeli media said Saleh had been assisting the Iranian military against Israel.

The most powerful men in Lebanese politics have been in charge for decades, some since the early 1970s. They've survived civil war, assassinations, uprisings and other turmoil, hanging on to power for decades in a turbulent, unforgiving region.

Now, they're in a desperate fight to cling to positions and wealth as Lebanon takes hit after hit, grappling with one of the world's worst economic meltdowns in decades and the aftermath of an explosion that ripped through the capital a year ago, killing more than 215 people.