AFP - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army on Friday to prepare to raze the east Jerusalem house of a Palestinian whose rampage in a bulldozer killed three people, the ministry said.

Reuters - Israel responded to Thursday's rocket attack by again closing its border crossing with Gaza on Friday, dampening hopes among Gazans that a ceasefire between Hamas and the Jewish state might ease an Israeli-led blockade.

Reuters - An Israeli government proposal to demolish homes of Palestinians from Arab East Jerusalem who attack Israelis is legally viable, Israel's attorney-general wrote in a legal opinion.

AP - Israel says it is keeping Gaza's border crossings closed in retaliation for a rocket attack.

AFP - Israel received a report from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia that an Israeli airman reported missing in Lebanon since 1986 has been dead for more than 10 years, the Haaretz daily reported on Friday.

AFP - Hamas said on Friday it had suspended negotiations on the release of a captured Israeli soldier because the Jewish state was not respecting the terms of a truce with the Islamist movement.

AFP - Israel and Syria have agreed to extend indirect talks under Turkish mediation, Ankara's foreign ministry said Thursday.

AP - An Iranian diplomat said Thursday that four Iranians who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982 are alive in Israel and called for their release.

AFP - A powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off India's Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean on Saturday, the US Geological Survey said.

Reuters - A strong earthquake shook India's remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands but no tsunami alert was issued and there were no reports of damage, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services said on Friday. "The magnitude is 6.3 and it's centred in the Andaman Islands," Srinivas Kumar, an official at the centre, told Reuters.

AP - A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck off India's Andaman Islands on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, officials and police said.

Reuters - A 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck on Friday off India's Andaman Islands, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

AFP - The body that oversees the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty offered its unique know-how Wednesday to countries that ring the Pacific Ocean to warn them of killer tsunamis.

AFP - Disasters like the devastating earthquake in China have highlighted the need for countries to develop better emergency communications plans, experts say.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd landed in Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh on Saturday to see first hand Canberra's billion-dollar effort to help rebuild the province.

AP - International scientists said Tuesday they are almost certain a mud volcano that has displaced tens of thousands of villagers in central Indonesia was caused by faulty drilling of a gas exploration well — not an earthquake as claimed by the company.

AP - Syria has returned a marble artifact to Iraq that was stolen from one of the country's archaeological sites.

AP - A federal judge in Riverside, Calif., has ordered two Marines released from jail despite their refusal to testify before a grand jury investigating the alleged killing of Iraqi detainees in 2004.

AP - Democrat Barack Obama struggled Thursday to explain how his upcoming trip to Iraq might refine, but not basically alter, his promise to quickly remove U.S. combat troops from the war.

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waded into controversy on Thursday over his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, first saying he might "refine" his views but later declaring his stance had remained unchanged for more than a year.

AP - As of Thursday, July 3, 2008, at least 4,113 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AFP - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama insisted Thursday he had not changed his plan to order immediate troop withdrawals from Iraq, despite earlier saying he might refine his policies.

AP - Barack Obama's policy for bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as stated on his Web site:

AP - Iraq's prime minister plans trips to Europe and the Persian Gulf this month, apparently hoping improved security at home will pay dividends in greater international support — including from a country that did not back the U.S. invasion.

Reuters - An Algerian suspected of links to Osama bin Laden and bomb plots in the United States and France has been freed from a British prison after more than seven years but placed under house arrest while he fights deportation.

Reuters - A British woman who called herself the "lyrical terrorist" and wrote a poem about beheading a hostage, won an appeal against a criminal conviction in London on Tuesday.

AFP - A 24-year-old who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" won her appeal in London in Tuesday against conviction for collecting information which could help plan a terror attack.

AFP - John Smeaton, the fearless Scot who ran after and stopped a suspected suicide bomber fleeing Glasgow airport last year, said Tuesday he is leaving Britain for a new life in the United States.

AFP - A 19-year-old man was arrested under anti-terror laws on Monday in connection with an investigation into a suspect already charged with terror offences, police said.

AP - The partner of a failed suicide bomber was jailed for 15 years Thursday for not telling police about his plans to carry out an attack on the London subway system.

AFP - A civil servant who mislaid high-level intelligence documents on Al-Qaeda and Iraq, triggering a frantic police search, was in "clear breach" of security rules, the government said Thursday.

Reuters - Britain said on Thursday it would look into and explain an embarrassing revelation that a senior intelligence official had left a file with top secret documents about Iraq and al Qaeda on a train.

AP - U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told his fellow South Koreans on Friday to trust and support the country's leaders following weeks of protests against U.S. beef imports that have rocked the government.

AP - Nepal's government has decided to ask the United Nations to continue a peacekeeping mission in the country for another six months, an official said Friday.

AP - U.N. officials decided Thursday to retain the eastern German city of Dresden as a World Heritage Site for now despite earlier warnings that the construction of a bridge endangered its status.

Reuters - The United States said on Thursday it expects the U.N. Security Council to vote next week on sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and top aides in response to last week's widely condemned election.

AFP - Children in Afghanistan suffer more than in any other country in the world from violence, war and poverty, and sometimes become suicide bombers, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Thursday.

AFP - The United States on Thursday formally submitted a sanctions resolution in the UN Security Council that would target Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and 11 of his aides.

Reuters - Afghanistan's insurgency can be overcome, not only by military means but by building up the state and getting the economy going, the United Nations envoy to Afghanistan said on Thursday.

AFP - Nepal will ask the United Nations to continue to monitor thousands of former Maoist guerrillas confined to camps as part of a peace deal, a minister said on Thursday.

AFP - Robert Mugabe ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending Zimbabwe's political crisis Friday unless they acknowledged his victory in a one-man presidential election.

AFP - Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba made his first appearance Friday before the International Criminal Court in The Hague where he stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Reuters - President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that although he accepted the need for negotiations to end Zimbabwe's crisis, the opposition must drop their claim to power and accept that he was the country's leader.

AFP - Robert Mugabe said Friday he is only open to negotiations on an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis if he is accepted as the country's president following his widely condemned one-man election.

AFP - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua believes a peace summit slated for this month on the Niger Delta would end the crisis in the restive oil-rich region, his office said Friday.

AFP - Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba was to make his first appearance Friday before the International Criminal Court where he faces trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

AFP - Rwandan President Paul Kagame threatened to charge French nationals over the 1994 genocide in his country if European courts did not reverse indictments on Rwandan officials, in an interview published Friday.

AFP - The United States on Thursday pushed for a UN travel ban and an assets freeze on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and 13 of his cronies in protest at last week's widely condemned, one-man presidential runoff vote.

AP - Freed from captivity and humiliation in the jungles of Colombia, Ingrid Betancourt returns to her beloved France and a hero's welcome Friday in the gilded halls of the presidential palace.

AP - Iran delivered its response Friday to an international offer of incentives for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a central part of its nuclear program, state television reported.

AP - Between surging oil prices, food inflation and a credit crunch that's depressed global growth, leaders from the Group of Eight economic powers face the gravest combination of economic woes in at least a decade when they gather next week.

AP - Hundreds of mainland Chinese tourists — some in matching white or pink shirts — arrived in Taiwan on Friday on the first regular commercial flights in nearly six decades between the old foes.

AP - A ferry sank in a river in Myanmar's cyclone-battered Irrawaddy delta, killing nearly 40 people, state-media reported Friday.

AFP - Newcastle United dismissed reports in the British press that owner Mike Ashley had put a price tag of 420 million pounds (840 million dollars) on the English Premier League club during talks with US investors over a possible sale.

AP - Israel says it is keeping Gaza's border crossings closed in retaliation for a rocket attack.

AP - Hugo Chavez, once a key mediator in securing hostage releases from Colombian rebels, could do little more than phone congratulations to President Alvaro Uribe after this week's bold rescue.

AFP - At least six people were killed and 20 injured Friday in a stampede at a popular Hindu religious festival in eastern India, officials said.

AP - In an unprecedented attempt to revive the tiger population in western India, authorities airlifted a female tiger to a national reserve Friday where it will join a male tiger delivered there last week.

AP - An outspoken pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong was barred Friday from traveling to southwest China to visit areas damaged in a massive earthquake.

AP - Hundreds of Tibetans protesting Chinese control of their homeland tried to storm the Chinese Embassy visa office in the Nepalese capital on Friday, police said.

AP - Fierce fighting raged in India's portion of Kashmir Friday, killing five army soldiers and a suspected Muslim rebel near the de facto border with Pakistan.

Reuters - Facing the likely withdrawal of left allies, India's government moved closer on Friday to clinching political support it needs to avoid early elections and to force through a nuclear energy deal with the United States.

AFP - A study on tigers in one of Nepal's national parks suggests that the population has been halved by poachers in just a few years, a senior wildlife official said Friday.

AFP - India's coalition government was undergoing a major shake-up Friday with the dominant Congress party pushing on with a controversial nuclear deal with the US and ditching left-wing allies.

AP - Britain's senior intelligence official has been rushed to a London hospital after falling into a coma, officials said Friday, but foul play is not suspected in his sudden illness.

AFP - The BBC's longest-serving and well-respected foreign correspondent, Charles Wheeler, has died at the age of 85, the broadcaster said Friday.

AFP - Farmers reacted furiously Friday after the governrnent decided against a proposed badger cull aimed at controlling the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in England.

AFP - Formula One chiefs announced on Friday that the British Grand Prix will move from Silverstone to Donington Park from 2010 onwards in a 10-year deal.

AFP - A 16-year-old boy who was stabbed in south London has died of his injuries, police said Friday, taking the number of teenagers killed in the British capital this year to 18.

AFP - Britain's top intelligence adviser is seriously ill in hospital, the government and police said Friday, but dismissed reports of foul play.

AFP - A computer database that holds information on violent criminals and sex offenders is fraught with serious technical and logistical errors, a report said Friday.

AFP - Bradford & Bingley said on Friday that US investment group TPG Capital had pulled out of an agreement to buy about one quarter of the struggling British bank.

AP - Hundreds of mainland Chinese tourists — some in matching white or pink shirts — arrived in Taiwan on Friday on the first regular commercial flights in nearly six decades between the old foes.

AP - Chrysler LLC, looking for foreign partnerships to help drive its business as U.S. sales slump, announced a deal with China's Great Wall Motor Co. on Friday to study sharing technology, components and distribution.

AP - Hundreds of mainland Chinese tourists — some in matching white or pink shirts — arrived in Taiwan on Friday on the first regular commercial flights in nearly six decades between the old foes.

AP - China plans to use unmanned security drones to patrol the skies over the Olympic sailing venue of Qingdao, state media reported Friday.

Reuters - Historic regular flights between Taiwan and China began on Friday, in a show of conciliation between the long-time rivals that could bring large numbers of mainland Chinese visitors to the island.

AFP - The clock that once counted down to the start of the Olympics in the centre of Qingdao, the sailing venue for next month's Games, now reads zero days, zero hours and zero seconds.

Reuters - China moved to sack two law-and-order officials blamed for mishandling a riot in the country's southwest, saying that broader abuses of power lay behind the mass outrage, state media reported on Friday.

AFP - The police chief whose inquiry into the alleged rape and murder of a schoolgirl triggered riots in southwestern China is facing the sack for sparking the unrest, state media reported early Friday.

AFP - Brazilian striker Jo joined Manchester City from CSKA Moscow on Wednesday for what the English Premier League side said was a "club record" undisclosed fee.

AFP - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has urged developing countries, including his own, to join rich nations in setting targets to reduce emissions blamed for global warming.

Reuters - Barked commands and the thump of helicopter blades jolted Juliana out of bed early in the morning of April 3.

Reuters - A Brazilian student lost in the Amazon rain forest for more than 40 days was found by his father, only to die in his arms shortly after, rescue officials said on Tuesday.

Reuters - Gold necklaces from India, an alloy from Brazil and 23 other developing country products will no longer receive U.S. duty-free treatment, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Monday.

AFP - Brazil's state-run Petrobras on July 21 will start pumping oil from Nigeria's offshore Agbami oil field, in partnership with Total and Chevron-Texaco, the company said Saturday.

Reuters - A group that campaigns for tribal peoples' rights denied on Tuesday that it and the Brazilian government had misled the media over photographs of an uncontacted Indian tribe in the Amazon last month.

AFP - Sao Paulo put on a display of Japanese culture to rival one of its carnival parades Saturday in a procession attended by Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito.

Reuters - Poland has rejected a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing a "missile shield" on Polish soil but remains open for further talks with Washington, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday.

AP - Freed from captivity and humiliation in the jungles of Colombia, Ingrid Betancourt returns to her beloved France and a hero's welcome Friday in the gilded halls of the presidential palace.

AFP - Newcastle United dismissed reports in the British press that owner Mike Ashley had put a price tag of 420 million pounds (840 million dollars) on the English Premier League club during talks with US investors over a possible sale.

AP - Britain's senior intelligence official has been rushed to a London hospital after falling into a coma, officials said Friday, but foul play is not suspected in his sudden illness.

AP - Divers pulled seven bodies out of the Sava River and fought strong currents Friday to search for five other missing people after two canoes were crushed running over a dam in southeastern Slovenia.

AP - The European Union and Russia said Friday they would discuss all aspects of energy cooperation — including access to energy markets — during negotiations on broader political and economic ties.

AFP - The BBC's longest-serving and well-respected foreign correspondent, Charles Wheeler, has died at the age of 85, the broadcaster said Friday.

Reuters - Goldman Sachs said the European banks sector needs to raise about 60 billion to 90 billion euros ($94 to $141 billion), or withhold one year of dividends, to reach an aggregate Tier I ratio of 9 percent -- a level achieved by European banks that have recapitalized recently.

Reuters - Facing the likely withdrawal of left allies, the government moved closer on Friday to clinching political support it needs to avoid early elections and to force through a nuclear energy deal with the United States.

Reuters - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appears to be pressing ahead with a civilian nuclear deal with the United States despite threats from his communist allies that they could withdraw their crucial parliamentary support from the government.

Reuters - Inflation accelerated to 11.63 percent in late June, above forecasts and its highest since the series began in 1995, raising the likelihood of an interest rate increase this month to follow two hikes in June.

Reuters - At least six people were trampled to death and dozens injured in a stampede at the annual chariot festival or the Rath Yatra in Orissa on Friday, police said.

Reuters - Truckers in India ended their general strike on Friday after convincing the government in overnight talks to reduce toll taxes and meet other demands, a union leader said.

Reuters - The Lahore High Court on Friday lifted an 18-month ban on Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar for indiscipline.

Reuters - India qualified for the Asia Cup final after overhauling a victory target of 309 with six wickets to spare against Sri Lanka on Thursday.

Reuters - The Samajwadi Party (SP) that could hold the balance of power in India said on Thursday it still had doubts over a civilian nuclear deal with the United States and was not yet ready to give its crucial support to an embattled government.

AFP - Iran on Friday handed world powers its "constructive and creative" response to their letter outlining proposals to end the five-year standoff over its contested nuclear programme.

Reuters - Iran's ambassador in Brussels has submitted Tehran's response to an incentives package offered by six world powers over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, the official news agency IRNA reported on Friday.

AP - Iran delivered its response Friday to an international offer of incentives for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a central part of its nuclear program, state television reported.

Reuters - Iran will respond on Friday to incentives offered by six world powers to try to entice Tehran to stop enriching uranium, which they fear could result in a nuclear bomb.

AFP - Iran will deliver its response on Friday to proposals offered by world powers to end the standoff over its nuclear programme, top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was quoted as saying.

AP - Iranian state TV is reporting that a moderate earthquake has jolted a small town in eastern Iran.

AP - Iran would consider any military action against its nuclear facilities as the beginning of a war, the country's top Revolutionary Guards commander said in remarks published Friday.

AFP - The head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has warned that any Israeli or US attack on its nuclear sites would mean the outbreak of war, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday.

AP - Japan announced Friday it will provide $50 million in new emergency food aid to help developing countries cope with the impact of soaring food prices.

AFP - Japan announced Friday it would contribute a fresh 50 million dollars in aid to developing countries over the next three months to help them cope with soaring food prices.

AFP - Japan is ready to spare humpback whales from its Antarctic hunt for another year if international whaling talks make progress, a senior Japanese official said Wednesday.

AP - Tokyo Customs punished three of its officers Monday for secretly slipping drugs into travelers' luggage more than 160 times at Japan's main international airport to train drug-sniffing dogs, an official said.

AP - Japan will send military personnel to Sudan to join U.N. peacekeeping operations in the country's first military dispatch to the African nation, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Monday.

AP - A man angered by a western Japanese city's welfare policy rammed a car loaded with gas canisters and kerosene into city hall Monday, injuring two workers, police said.

AFP - Leaders from the Group of Eight industrial powers will agree to establish a task force at their summit next month to tackle the world food crisis, a report said on Monday.

AP - Protesters clashed with police in Tokyo Sunday during demonstrations against an upcoming summit of leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

AP - Tropical Storm Douglas weakened to a depression off Mexico's coast on Thursday and was forecast to die at sea.

Reuters - The investigation of a salmonella outbreak in the United States is shifting to the southern border to encompass produce imported from Mexico, CNN reported on Thursday.

AP - Lost scenes from the sci-fi classic "Metropolis," recently discovered in the archives of a Buenos Aires museum, were shown to journalists for the first time in decades on Thursday.

Reuters - Union support sank for Peru's nationwide mining strike on Thursday, while workers from other mines said the walkout would go on until Congress passed a bill to give them a bigger slice of corporate profits.

Reuters - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain took a veiled swipe at Democratic rival Barack Obama over trade on Thursday in the final leg of a Latin American trip aimed at showcasing the Arizona senator's foreign policy credentials.

AP - Guatemala's 36-year civil war cost some 200,000 lives, mostly of Mayan Indians caught between government forces and rebels. Twelve years after peace was signed, forensic anthropologists are still hunting for the missing.

AP - A spokesman for the U.S. mission here on Thursday denied Cuba's charge that American diplomats were instigating opposition protests linked to American independence day.

AP - Four decapitated bodies were found on a street in the Mexican city of Culiacan, blocks away from their severed heads.

AP - North Korea said Friday it will not take further steps to dismantle its nuclear program until the U.S. and its other negotiating partners award fuel oil and political benefits promised under an aid-for-disarmament deal.

AFP - North Korea said Friday it would not push ahead with an international deal to scrap its nuclear programme until negotiating partners fulfil their side of the bargain.

AP - The Bush administration says it has $20 million available to pay for disabling North Korea's main nuclear facility.

AFP - US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that "military options remain on the table" in nuclear disputes with North Korea and Iran but underlined that he preferred a diplomatic resolution.

U.S. News & World Report - In a process marked by setbacks and only partially fulfilled obligations, the denuclearization of North Korea could be entering its most challenging period this summer as U.S. experts sift through thousands of pages of data and finalize painstakingly agreed arrangements on how to verify the secretive North's atomic activities.

AFP - The parents of a Japanese schoolgirl who was snatched by North Korean agents in 1977 Wednesday dismissed Pyongyang's move to reopen investigations into the case and urged Tokyo to maintain pressure on the regime.

AFP - The United States emphasized Tuesday it would not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, saying that disbanding the hardline communist state's atomic arms program was critical.