ALL RECENT AP STORIES

Nigeria's military says soldiers killed four suspected members of a radical Islamist sect during a raid. The raid happened Sunday in Kano, Nigeria's largest city in its predominantly Muslim north. Military spokesman Lt. Iweah Ikedichi said Monday the raid came after soldiers received reports that an area had become a safe haven for the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram. The lieutenant said four suspected Boko Haram members were killed, while others were arrested. Boko Haram is waging an increasingly...

An official says a boulder the size of a house has fallen from a mountain in Vietnam, smashing a car and killing six people who were on a religious pilgrimage. Village official Keo Khon says five people including the driver died at the scene Saturday in southern An Giang province. Another passenger died while being evacuated and two others remain hospitalized. Khon said Monday that the eight pilgrims were heading home after visiting mountaintop pagodas when the large boulder broke loose and tumbled...

An Iraqi court on Monday declared a Hezbollah commander accused of killing U.S. solders in Iraq in 2007 not guilty for lack of evidence and ruled that he be set free. The case of Ali Mussa Daqduq has been a thorn in diplomatic relations between Baghdad and Washington since the American military pullout last December. U.S. terror experts have described Daqduq as among "the worst of the worst" militants who would remain a severe threat to Americans if freed. He is a Lebanese commander for Hezbollah,...

His voice trembling, the militant accused of building bombs for the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks apologized Monday for the first time to the victims and their families. Umar Patek, a leading member of the al-Qaida-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah, was emotional as he testified at his trial in the capital, Jakarta, that he'd been against the bombings that killed 202 people from the start. He said he had been afraid, however, to challenge more senior members of the group. "I still feel guilty,"...

Iraqi officials say a bomb left inside a minibus has killed two commuters and wounded nine others in Baghdad. A police officer says the bomb exploded when the bus reached the northern Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah around 10:30 a.m. on Monday. Two revered Shiite Imams are buried in Kazimiyah and Shiite pilgrims converge from inside and outside Iraq to the site. The area's big market also attracts thousands of shoppers every day. A health official at a nearby hospital confirmed the causality...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she has no desire to make another run for the White House but hopes to see an American woman president in her lifetime. Politely turning aside questions about her political intentions at a town hall event in Kolkata, Clinton said she really wanted to see "that final glass ceiling" broken. Clinton, who sought the Democratic nomination four years ago and barely lost to Barack Obama, noted that the American political process is difficult...

Rescuers searching through mud and debris for flash-flood victims in northwestern Nepal had found 17 bodies by Monday, police said. Another 47 people, including three Ukrainian tourists, were missing and presumed dead. Houses, farms, trucks and trailers were swept away when the Seti River, held back by an avalanche, burst through the snow blockage and sent water gushing through villages along its banks. The flooding came with little warning Saturday _ a day when villagers traditionally wash clothes...

Colombia's main rebel group said Sunday that it is holding a French journalist missing since disappearing a week ago during combat. The ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, did not say if or when the insurgency plans to release Romeo Langlois. It noted, however, in a communique published online that Langlois "was dressed in military clothing of the regular army" on April 28 when security forces he was accompanying on a cocaine lab-destruction mission were...

South Korea says it's strengthening customs inspections in a crackdown on the smuggling of Chinese-made capsules filled with powdered human flesh. The state-run Korea Customs Service said Monday that since last August it has discovered 35 attempts to smuggle from China about 17,450 such capsules disguised as stamina-boosters. Customs officials say the capsules were made from dead babies and infants in northeastern China, and that ethnic Koreans living there tried to smuggle them into South Korea....

As Jewish forces advanced on their village during the war that surrounded Israel's creation in 1948, the Palestinian Faour family piled children and belongings into donkey carts and fled, hoping to return home when the fighting stopped. Only some of them got back, and the family is still divided. Some are in the Lebanese city of Sidon as stateless refugees. Others are 80 kilometers (50 miles) away as Israeli citizens in their village of Shaab, across a fenced and hostile border. Granddaughter...

An Afghan soldier killed one U.S. Marine and wounded another before being shot to death in return fire in southern Afghanistan, the latest in a series of attacks against foreigners blamed on government forces working with coalition troops. Sunday's attack is among nearly 20 this year that have raised the level of mistrust between the U.S.-led coalition and their Afghan partners as NATO gears up to hand over security to local forces ahead of a 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of combat troops....

A demonstration by at least 20,000 people on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration as president turned into a battle with police Sunday after some protesters tried to split off from the approved venue and march to the Kremlin. Club-wielding officers wearing helmets seized demonstrators and hauled them to police vehicles, dragging some by the hair, others by the neck. Several protesters were injured, including one man with blood dripping from his head down the left side of his face. Three leaders...

France handed the presidency Sunday to leftist Francois Hollande, a champion of government stimulus programs who says the state should protect the downtrodden _ a victory that could deal a death blow to the drive for austerity that has been the hallmark of Europe in recent years. Mild and affable, the president-elect inherits a country deep in debt and divided over how to integrate immigrants while preserving its national identity. Markets will closely watch his initial moves as president. He...

The U.S. has finally started the prosecution of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, but the trial won't be starting anytime soon, and both sides said Sunday that the case could continue for years. Defense lawyer James Connell said a tentative trial date of May 2013 is a "placeholder" until a true date can be set for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the attacks, and his co-defendants....

Six European countries held elections Sunday. Here is a quick look at what was at stake: _FRANCE: Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeats incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency by capitalizing on anger over austerity measures. As president, Hollande is expected to push for a more stimulus-minded approach to the financial crisis in France and the rest of Europe. _GREECE: Greeks punish the two main parties in parliamentary elections, with official projections showing both hemorrhaging...

The patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church presided over the baptism of hundreds of babies in a Tbilisi cathedral on Sunday as part of an effort credited with helping raise the birth rate in this former Soviet nation. Patriarch Ilia II has promised to become the godfather of all babies born into Orthodox Christian families who already have two or more children. Since he began the mass baptisms in 2008, he has gained nearly 11,000 godchildren. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has said...

Furious Greeks punished the two parties that have dominated politics for decades in the crisis-battered country Sunday, leaving its multibillion dollar international bailout _ and even its future in the euro currency _ hanging in the balance. With more than 83 percent of the vote counted, Greece appeared to be heading toward political stalemate. Nobody won enough votes to form a government, and the two parties that backed the bailout _ the conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK _ conceded...

An airstrike Sunday killed a top al-Qaida leader on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship, Yemeni officials said. The drone attack was carried out by the CIA, U.S. officials said. Fahd al-Quso was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle, along with another al-Qaida operative in the southern Shabwa province, Yemeni military officials said. They were speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with military regulations. The drone strike...

Sudan's president says the conflict with Southern Sudan will not affect close relations between the two peoples. Omar al-Bashir's comments Sunday come days after his government accepted an African Union plan to resume talks with South Sudan, after recent fighting nearly brought the two nations back to the brink of war. South Sudan's military says Khartoum's bombing of border areas has continued despite its acceptance of the plan. South Sudan won independence from Sudan last year, but the two...

Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament on Sunday approved a ban on the country's next president from sending civilians for trial by military tribunals, but preserving that power for the military itself. The measure would curb the powers enjoyed by the deposed President Hosni Mubarak, who used the military tribunals to refer opponents, especially Islamists. The law retains the current wide-ranging powers for the military to send civilians to military tribunals. Activists have been campaigning against...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday signaled he wants to hold new elections in September, more than a year ahead of schedule, setting up a brief campaign that polls suggest will propel him to another term in office. A new election could also result in a far different coalition comprised of centrist parties more open to making concession to the Palestinians. The situation also adds new uncertainty to the decision on whether Israel should take military action against Iran's suspect nuclear...

President Bashar Assad's grip on Syria is getting weaker by the day and "victory is close," Turkey's prime minister said Sunday in an address to thousands of cheering Syrians who fled a brutal crackdown on an anti-regime uprising. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's cross-border taunt during a rare visit to a refugee camp, delivered while standing atop a bus and protected by snipers on rooftops, came a day before Syria was to hold parliament elections. The regime has portrayed the vote for a 250-member parliament...

A new member of an Islamist group in north Mali attacked and burned a saint's tomb classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Timbuktu, the spokesman for the group said Sunday. The act threatens to raise tensions that have been building between residents and the Islamists who occupied the city in April, and raises worries that instability could lead to the destruction of historic sites in the fabled town known as an ancient seat of Islamic learning. "A new member of the Ansar Dine group came...

A Congolese army spokesman says the military has taken control of two territories in the North Kivu province that have seen fighting in recent weeks. Col. Sylvain Ekenge said in a statement that the situation in the Masisi and Rutshuru territories is under control and the military overnight Saturday suspended an offensive launched against rebels. Lt. Gen. Didier Etumba read the statement to The Associated Press on Sunday. The U.N. refugee agency says nearly 5,000 people _ mostly women, children...

German police say a SWAT team overwhelmed an unidentified man who fired several shots inside a church. Police say officers stormed the church in the western city of Siegen on Sunday afternoon about six hours after the man had locked himself inside the building. A church employee was initially threatened by the man but managed to escape, leaving the attacker by himself inside the building for hours. German news agency dapd reported the man was injured during the raid and was hospitalized. Police...

Armenians voted for a new parliament on Sunday in an election that the nation's president hoped would give him a majority among the lawmakers. President Serge Sarkisian's Republican Party was expected to win the election, but it was aiming for more than half of the seats to avoid having to form a coalition. The party held 62 of the 131 seats in the outgoing parliament, just shy of a majority. The voting also was seen as a test of public support for Sarkisian, who comes up for re-election next...

Israel's national airline has apologized to President Shimon Peres after attempting to charge him nearly $5,000 to bring an oxygen tank on an official trip to Canada. Israeli media reported last week that Peres opted to fly with Air Canada because El Al, for the first time, wanted to charge the 88-year-old president for the oxygen tank. According to protocol, an oxygen tank and other medical equipment is mandatory whenever an Israeli president or prime minister flies abroad. El Al spokeswoman...

An increasing number of U.K. lawmakers are seeking help for alcohol-related problems, the parliamentary speaker said Sunday, saying drinking problems among legislators mirrored those of British society at large. Heavy subsidies on alcohol at Parliament's nearly 20 bars and restaurants had been removed following a drunken brawl in February, House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said. In that incident, Labour lawmaker Eric Joyce head-butted Stuart Andrew, from the rival Conservative Party, and also...

Clashes erupted in Germany when police tried to separate competing rallies by an ultraconservative Muslim group and a small far-right march, injuring 29 officers, authorities said Sunday. More than 100 Salafist protesters were briefly arrested. The trouble in the western city of Bonn started late Saturday when hundreds of Muslims protested against the rally of about 30 supporters of the local far-right party Pro NRW, which has angered Muslims by showing unfavorable cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet...

Treated to a hero's welcome, Turkey's prime minister met Syrian refugees Sunday for the first time since his country opened its doors to tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing their government's crackdown on a popular uprising. Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to defend the rights of the Syrian people, saying they were close to achieving success. He was greeted by joyous Syrians at the largest refugee camp near the border. Erdogan has urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to quit and has encouraged the...

Marika Mitsotakis, the voluble, opinionated wife of a former Greek prime minister whose cooking skills were the stuff of political urban legend, died in Athens on Sunday as two of her children ran for re-election in Parliament. She was 81. Her family said she died in a hospital, but did not specify the cause of death. She dealt with various health issues over the years. Marika Mitsotakis' husband, Constantine Mitsotakis, was prime minister from 1990-93, after serving in several cabinet positions...

Count Carl Johan Bernadotte, who lost his Swedish royal title and succession rights when he married a commoner, has died. He was 95. Bernadotte died on Saturday at a hospital in Angelholm, in southern Sweden, Royal Court spokesman Bertil Ternert said Sunday. The court did not disclose the cause of death. Bernadotte was the youngest of King Gustaf VI Adolf's five children, and an uncle of the current Swedish monarch, King Carl XVI Gustaf. He was also a great grandchild of Britain's Queen Victoria....

Twenty-six Swiss men have joined the oldest standing army in the world, swearing to give up their lives to protect the pope as the Vatican's newest Swiss Guards. The swearing-in ceremony took place Sunday inside the Vatican auditorium _ a last-minute change due to rain. Usually it is held in the St. Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace. The ceremony is held each May 6 to commemorate the day in 1527 when 147 Swiss Guards died protecting Pope Clement VII during the Sack of Rome. The guards,...

As a former U.S. commerce secretary and governor of Washington state, Gary Locke wasn't considered much of a heavyweight on human rights when he became the first Chinese-American ambassador to Beijing last year. Trade and maintaining smooth relations between Washington and its biggest foreign creditor were seen as dominating his agenda. Yet, nine months on, Locke's key role in the recent drama over blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng has put him on the front lines of U.S. concerns about China's...

A tornado tore through a city northeast of Japan's capital on Sunday, killing one person, injuring dozens of others and destroying scores of houses. Firefighters and medical teams rushed to the area after the tornado struck Tsukuba city, 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Tokyo. The city is a science center, with dozens of research and academic institutes, but the tornado appeared to mostly hit residential areas. A 14-year-old boy died after being injured by the storm, Tsukuba Medical Center said....

The Israeli Supreme Court has reacted coolly to a government request to delay the demolition of an illegal West Bank settler outpost. The state agreed to raze the five buildings by May 1 after it acknowledged they were built on private Palestinian land. But it put off the deadline by asking the court to reopen the case. The government is under pressure from settlers who insist the construction was legal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition is sympathetic to the settlers....

A grenade explosion killed two people and wounded at least 30 others outside a crowded bar in the southern Philippines, officials said Sunday. Investigators were trying to identify the attackers who tossed the grenade late Saturday outside the El Sentro Resto Bar and a nearby drug store in Iligan city. Police found the pin of the grenade, which also damaged a number of parked cars and sent people fleeing in panic, army Col. Daniel Lucero said. It remained unclear if Muslim rebels, al-Qaida-linked...

Iran said Sunday it was "concerned" about a U.S.-Afghan security pact signed earlier this week that could keep American forces in Afghanistan for years to come. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in remarks carried by the official IRNA press agency that the pact will increase instability in Afghanistan, which borders Iran to the east. He said a withdrawal of foreign forces would bring security to the strife-torn country. The wide-ranging agreement signed Tuesday envisions US troops...

Serbia, a landlocked nation of 7.1 million people in southeast Europe, is holding presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections Sunday. Whoever wins could affect Serbia's future relations with the European Union as well as Kosovo, a one-time province whose declaration of independence Serbia has refused to accept. About 8,500 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT) and close at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Sunday. Unofficial results are expected a few hours after polls close, with a complete...

A fire has torn through a karaoke bar in South Korea, killing nine people. Police said Sunday the victims were drinking and singing at the karaoke lounge in the southeastern port city of Busan when the blaze broke out Saturday night. Busan police say they believe three Sri Lankan men and six other South Koreans have died after inhaling toxic gases. Police say the fire has left 25 other people injured and one of them is in serious condition. Police say the cause of the fire is under investigation....

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will use a two-day visit to India this week to urge further reductions in Indian imports of Iranian oil. A senior official traveling with Clinton in Bangladesh ahead of her arrival in India on Sunday said the matter will be at the top of the secretary's agenda in talks with Indian leaders. India, which has tremendous energy needs to fuel its rapid growth, has made some progress in easing its dependence on Iranian oil, but the official said the U.S....

Greeks began voting at precisely 7 a.m. local time (0400 GMT, 12 a.m. EDT) in their most critical _ and uncertain _ election in decades, with voters set to punish the two main parties that are being held responsible for the country's dire economic straits. Thirty-two parties vie for the votes of nearly 10 million registered voters, many of whom, according to recent polls, were undecided on the eve of the election. Abstention, once projected to reach historic highs but seen rising in recent opinion...

France holds a presidential runoff election nationwide Sunday. Here is how it works and what's at stake. ___ WHAT IS HAPPENING: French citizens are choosing a president in direct elections. France held the first round of voting April 22, and the two top candidates advanced to the second and final round Sunday. Just over 43 million people are eligible to vote. WHEN AND WHERE: Polling stations in municipal buildings around the country will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (0600-1600GMT; 2 a.m.-12...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will use a two-day visit to India this week to urge further reductions in Indian imports of Iranian oil. A senior official traveling with Clinton in Bangladesh ahead of her arrival in India on Sunday said the matter will be at the top of the secretary's agenda in talks with Indian leaders. India, which has tremendous energy needs to fuel its rapid growth, has made some progress in easing its dependence on Iranian oil, but the official said the U.S....

One of Said Lakenizaa's two remaining cows fell sick and died last year as he led it down the steep dirt track from his village in Morocco's Atlas mountains to the rest of the world. It was the second time he'd lost a cow because the lack of paved roads hampered access to health care, for animals and humans. But now, after enduring their lot for years, the 40 Berber families in Azdine have started protesting for better services. They demonstrated in front of local government offices four times...

Officials in the Philippines say a powerful grenade explosion has killed two people and wounded at least 30 others outside a crowded bar in the south of the country. Army Col. Daniel Lucero says investigators are trying to identify the attackers who left or lobbed the grenade that exploded late Saturday outside the El Sentro Resto Bar in Iligan city. Police found the pin of the grenade, which also damaged a number of parked cars and sent people fleeing in panic. Lucero said Sunday it remained...

Chinese state media say 12 people have been killed and 19 others injured in two back-to-back highway accidents in southwest China. The official Xinhua News Agency says that a truck hit a car Saturday afternoon on an expressway between Shantou and Kunming cities, killing three and injuring two. Xinhua says an 11-vehicle pileup then occurred 14 minutes later and 410 feet (125 meters) away on the same highway. The second accident killed nine people and injured 17 others. Xinhua says the causes...

A fire has torn through a karaoke bar in South Korea, killing nine people. Police said Sunday the victims were drinking and singing at the karaoke lounge in the southeastern port city of Busan when the blaze broke out Saturday night. Busan police say they believe three Sri Lankan men and six other South Koreans have died after inhaling toxic gases. Police say the fire has left 25 other people injured and one of them is in serious condition. Police say the cause of the fire is under investigation....

Egypt's military officials moved swiftly Saturday to prosecute protesters they blamed for an attack on the Defense Ministry, in an attempt to put down increasingly violent protests against their authority just weeks before the country's presidential election. The fierce street battles on Friday raised to new heights the tension between the generals, who assumed power after Hosni Mubarak stepped down last year, and their critics, predominently secular and liberal groups but now spearheaded by hard-line...

Yemeni airstrikes killed five militants in the south Saturday as the country's president vowed to intensify his campaign against al-Qaida militants. Government troops have been waging an offensive against the terror network for several weeks after militants took advantage of Yemen's political turmoil to expand their presence. Military officials said airstrikes Saturday in the southern city of Lawder, in Abyan province, killed five militants. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because...

A bomb struck a car wash Saturday in Aleppo, killing at least five people, a day after government troops opened fire to break up large protests against a violent university raid in Syria's largest city. Aleppo, an important economic hub, has largely stayed out of the revolt against President Bashar Assad that erupted nearly 14 months ago, but the raid on Aleppo University that killed four students earlier in the week has swelled the crowds of protesters. On Friday, thousands marched against the...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's support in Iran's parliament crumbled as final results released Saturday showed conservative rivals consolidating their hold on the legislative body in a runoff vote. Iran has touted a robust turnout for Friday's vote as a show of support for the country's religious leadership in its confrontation with the West over the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program. The result is also a new humiliation for Ahmadinejad, whose political decline started last year...

The photos taken by a tourist from Scotland show his wife on the ground, hair flying, blood on her neck, with two cheetahs nearby. The Port Elizabeth Herald reported Friday that Violet D'Mello of Aberdeen, Scotland, was attacked by cheetahs on April 28 while in a petting pen with the animals at a game reserve near Port Elizabeth in southeastern South Africa. It says she was attacked while trying to protect young children from another group that was in the enclosure at the same time. Her husband...

An Israeli military official says an officer who was punished for hitting a pro-Palestinian activist last month has been reassigned to a training school. The official said Saturday that Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner is being investigated by military police and can still face further punishment. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to military protocol. The Israeli military did not have information on his reassignment. The military dismissed Eisner from his post as a deputy division commander after...

Human Rights Watch urged the new government in Libya Saturday to revoke a law that criminalizes glorifying the former dictator Moammar Gadhafi or spreading "propaganda" that insults or endangers the state. The law issued last week is one in a series of laws the National Transitional Council, Libya's interim rulers, has recently issued to deal with the legacy of Gadhafi. The laws have come under criticism from international and local rights groups for violating freedom of speech or being too vague...

A prominent human rights activist has been arrested by Bahraini authorities, a statement said Saturday, in a move that could further escalate the nearly 15-month-old unrest between opposition groups and the rulers of the Gulf kingdom. A statement from Bahrain's Interior Ministry said public prosecutors ordered the arrest of Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. The group has been active in calling attention to alleged abuses by Bahraini security forces and crackdowns...

Saudi Arabia's ambassador returned to Cairo on Saturday, a week after he was recalled following a wave of protests against the detention of an Egyptian lawyer that prompted the worst diplomatic row between the two countries in decades. The unexpected Saudi diplomatic break came following days of protests by hundreds of Egyptians outside the Saudi Embassy in Cairo and consulates in other cities to demand the release of Ahmed el-Gezawi, a prominent human rights lawyer. Relatives and rights groups...

An independent commission charged with investigating abuses committed during the January 2011 uprising that ousted Tunisia's longtime dictator has identified more deaths and injuries than previously reported. Saturday's report says there were 338 deaths and 2,147 injuries. Previous estimates were of 300 dead and 700 wounded during the revolution, which inspired similar revolts in Egypt and Libya. The report says 66 percent of those killed were shot, and concludes that responsibility for the violence...

The in-laws of a child bride who became the bruised and bloodied face of women's rights in Afghanistan have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations, a judge said Saturday. The plight of 15-year-old Sahar Gul captivated the nation and set off a storm of international condemnation when it came to light in late December. Officials said her husband's family kept her in a basement for six months after her arranged marriage, ripping out her fingernails, breaking...

Separate attacks in northeast Nigeria targeting a village and a wedding party killed at least eight people Saturday in a region that remains under near-daily assault by a radical Islamist sect, authorities said. In Maiduguri, the spiritual home of the sect known as Boko Haram, soldiers raided a wedding being held on behalf of a member of the sect, witnesses said. Boko Haram gunmen guarding the wedding opened fire on the attacking soldiers, witnesses said. Witnesses who declined to be named out...

Ethiopia's government has expelled two Arabs who flew in from the Middle East after the pair went to a mosque and tried to incite violence, an official said Saturday. The two men visited Addis Ababa's Grand Anwar Mosque on Friday and disseminated materials and made inflammatory statements, said Shimeles Kemal, state minister of communications. "The Ethiopian government found them to be persona non grata and they were immediately deported," he said. The men's nationalities were not made public....

A northeastern town has declared the king of Spain an unwelcome person, dealing another blow to the 74-year-old monarch who has faced scalding criticism for going on an elephant hunting trip during a severe financial crisis. The town council of Berga _ population 17,160 _ in the region of Catalonia approved a symbolic motion proposed by the pro-independence Popular Unity Candidature party declaring King Juan Carlos "persona non grata," or not welcome. The censure was published on the town's website...

Ten Palestinian prisoners participating in a mass hunger strike in Israeli jails were placed under medical supervision as their conditions worsened, officials said Saturday. The ten men are among 1,500 to 2,500 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand better conditions and an end to detention without trial. Although Israeli officials and Palestinians give different numbers of hunger strikers, it is still one of the largest prison protests in years. It involves a quarter to a half of...

Zimbabwe wildlife authorities say rangers shot and killed two marauding elephants after a man was trampled and gored to death in the country's northeast. State radio reported Saturday the man died late Friday when a herd of about 19 elephants roamed into a village farming district near the Mozambique border. It said rangers were trying to drive the herd back into unpopulated areas spanning the frontier. The radio said wildlife authorities warned villagers not to confront elephants stomping through...

Flash floods from a mountain river swept away dozens of people along with their cattle and houses in western Nepal, officials said. Police official Shailesh Thapa said 13 bodies have been recovered from the Seti river south of Mount Annapurna in Kaski district. Police were searching for dozens of missing people, including three Russian tourists who were trekking in the area, Thapa said. The names of the Russians were not immediately available. The flooding reached the tourist resort town of Pokhara,...

A bus bringing retired police officers to a national convention veered off a highway in northern Italy on Saturday and plunged into a canal, killing at least five people, officials said. More than a dozen others were injured, some of them seriously, when the bus broke through the barricades of the A13 highway near Padua and ended up partially submerged in water, firefighters and news reports said. Rescue crews recovered five bodies and extracted several other injured passengers from the bus,...

Even if China makes a rare concession and allows legal activist Chen Guangcheng to leave the country with his family, other dissidents say they don't expect a broader easing of controls. Authorities might even tighten the screws on prominent critics to prevent them from taking encouragement from Chen's case to challenge the leadership. The blind activist's escape from house arrest and flight to safety in the U.S. Embassy has provided a much-needed morale boost for a dissident community that over...

An American drone fired a volley of missiles into a house close to the Afghan border on Saturday, killing eight suspected militants and indicating U.S. resolve to continue with the attacks despite renewed Pakistani opposition, officials said. The strike in North Waziristan was the second American drone operation in Pakistan this week. The attacks come amid American efforts to rebuild its relationship with Pakistan, which in November blocked the passage of U.S. and NATO war supplies to neighboring...

A South African Cabinet minister died while attending an African Union meeting in Ethiopia, South Africa's president said Saturday. In a statement Saturday, President Jacob Zuma did not give a cause of death for Roy Padayachie, 62, who died Friday in the Ethiopian capital, where the AU is headquartered. "No amount of words can express this loss that the government and people of South Africa feel," Zuma said. Padayachie had been moved from minister of communications to minister for public service...

An Afghan official says a roadside bomb has killed five border police in an eastern province near the border with Pakistan. Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, who is a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, says the five were killed Friday evening when the vehicle in which they were patrolling was hit by the remote-controlled bomb. He said Saturday that the incident took place in the province's Dur Baba district. Militants commonly plant bombs along roads used by security forces, inflicting heavy...

An American drone fired a volley of missiles into a house close to the Afghan border on Saturday, killing eight suspected militants and indicating U.S. resolve to continue with the attacks despite renewed Pakistani opposition, officials said. The strike in North Waziristan was the second American drone operation in Pakistan this week. The attacks come amid American efforts to rebuild its relationship with Pakistan, which in November blocked the passage of U.S. and NATO war supplies to neighboring...

London's comic and outspoken mayor Boris Johnson won re-election Friday, triumphing in a closer-than-expected vote to secure a second term and his status as the unvarnished and unpredictable host of the 2012 Olympics Johnson's victory, in election results confirmed late Friday, was a bright spot on a rough day for his colleagues in Prime Minister David Cameron's governing Conservative Party, who took a drubbing in local elections. Voters stripped both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats...

Just by visiting Bangladesh, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be bringing a wary peace to the increasingly tense streets here, at least for now. Over the past two weeks, general strikes protesting the disappearance of an opposition leader have paralyzed the country. Homemade bombs exploded around Dhaka last weekend. Police responded by arresting dozens of opposition activists. But, in a sign of how important the United States is to this South Asian country, the main opposition...

Argentina officially recovered its leading energy company from private control on Friday as President Cristina Fernandez signed her expropriation measure into law and named a youthful Argentine as its chief executive. The country's leading politicians and all her top appointees gave her a standing ovation as she signed the measure sealing the fate of Repsol. The Spanish company now has little chance of seeing the $10.5 billion it says its shares in YPF SA are worth until years of legal battles...

Egyptian troops blasted protesters with water cannons, tear gas and live ammunition, trying to prevent them from marching on the Defense Ministry Friday in clashes that left one soldier dead and scores of people injured just three weeks ahead of presidential elections. The fierce street battles raised fears of a new cycle of violence surrounding the upcoming vote to replace Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted more than a year ago. For the first time in Egypt's chaotic transition, hard-line Islamists,...

Contradictions have emerged over claims that that Libya under dictator Moammar Gadhafi funded French President Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign. Sarkozy has strongly denied the claims. A Tunisian lawyer for former Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi said Thursday that according to his client, (EURO)50 million ($65 million) was provided to Sarkozy's campaign. Al-Mahmoudi is jailed in Tunisia pending possible extradition to Libya. But a French lawyer for Al-Mahmoudi, Marcel Ceccaldi,...

Malawi's new president is wary of welcoming her Sudanese counterpart, accused of war crimes, to a continental summit in July. Speaking at a news conference Friday, Joyce Banda said a visit by Sudan's president would be frowned upon by Malawi's international donors. But she says the final decision on whether he will be invited to an African Union summit "will have to be arrived at through a consultative process." Banda's predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika, who died in April, welcomed Omar al-Bashir...

Early returns in Iran's parliamentary runoff elections Friday showed conservative rivals of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leading in many constituencies in the vote that was billed as an endorsement of the country's controversial nuclear program. The semiofficial Mehr news agency said the president's opponents appeared to be winning a majority of the 65 seats that were up for grabs in the second round. Official results are expected Saturday. Ahmadinejad's conservative rivals already won an outright...

Ukraine's jailed and ailing ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko tentatively agreed Friday to have her back condition treated at a local hospital under the supervision of a German doctor. Tymoshenko lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko said the treatment of Tymoshenko's herniated disc will start Tuesday at a hospital in the eastern city of Kharkiv where she is jailed. He said she will give her final approval after meeting with her attorneys next week. Dr. Karl Max Einhaeupl of Berlin's Charite clinic, who arrived...

The IOC criticized an Argentine TV ad Friday that links the London Olympics to Argentina's dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands, calling it a blatant attempt to use the games for political purposes. The International Olympic Committee sent a letter to Argentina's national Olympic committee denouncing the ad, which reasserts Argentina's claim to the islands. The ad shows the field hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg training for the games by running through the islands' capital of Stanley....

Egypt's ousted leader Hosni Mubarak turned 84 on Friday and celebrated his birthday at a Cairo hospital where he is detained, according to a security official and Egyptian daily papers. The country's former first lady, Suzanne Mubarak, visited him with relatives and grandchildren, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media This was the second birthday for the former Egyptian president while in detention. Mubarak is on trial on charges...

Iraq's vice president on Friday described a terror trial pending against him in Baghdad as part of a political vendetta that has wider repercussions for Iraqi unity and sectarian tensions across the Middle East. The trial in absentia of Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim, was postponed Thursday as his lawyers appealed to have parliament create a special court to hear the case that could deepen Iraq's sectarian divide. Al-Hashemi has denied charges that he ran death squads that targeted government...

An Algerian army official says two officers have been killed and two wounded when their car was hit by a mortar blast. The official said Friday the car was hit by a shell from a homemade launcher in the region of Boumerdes, 35 miles (50 kilometers) east of the capital, killing the two officers in the front seat. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media, added the army personnel were driving a civilian car. The heavily forested Boumerdes...

Clusters of balloons exploded Friday during a political rally in the central square of Armenia's capital, injuring at least 144 people, authorities said. The Emergencies Ministry said 104 of them had to be hospitalized with burns after the explosion in Yerevan, which it said was caused by a smoker who lit a cigarette near the balloons. Health Minister Artyom Pushkian said no one had life-threatening injuries. The balloons were supposed to be flown at a Republican Party rally that drew tens of...

Syrian forces fired on thousands of protesters Friday in Aleppo, killing a teenager, after a raid on dormitories at the city's main university killed four students and enflamed tensions in a key bastion of support for the regime. An Aleppo-based activist said the protests were the largest the city has seen since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in March 2011. Aleppo is a major economic hub that has remained largely loyal to Assad over the course of the 14-month uprising....

A photo of Barack Obama in a campaign video for French President Nicolas Sarkozy is upsetting the team of Sarkozy's rival, Socialist Francois Hollande. Hollande's campaign chief Pierre Moscovici said Friday he was surprised the photo of Obama and Sarkozy aired in the video and called the U.S. Embassy to discuss the matter. Hollande leads Sarkozy in polls before Sunday's election. Another campaign staffer said Hollande's aides are furious, fearing the image suggests that Obama _ who is widely...

Authorities say gunmen from a radical Islamist sect shot and killed two guards during a prison break in northeast Nigeria. Borno state police spokesman Samuel Tizhe said Friday the attack happened overnight Thursday near the village of Kunshi. Tizhe said gunmen first attacked a police station, then freed all the prisoners. Tizhe said police have made 23 arrests since the prison break. It was not immediately clear how many inmates escaped from the prison after the attack. Boko Haram is waging...

The twin thundering car bombs that shook the capital of Dagestan and killed at least 13 people were grisly reminders that Vladimir Putin, who came to power a dozen years ago as a hardliner against Caucasus insurgents, will have to confront more violence as he returns to a third term in the Kremlin. Putin, to be inaugurated as president Monday after spending a four-year sojourn as prime minister due to term limits, largely succeeded in his vulgar vow to wipe out Chechen rebels even if they had...

In the rigid enemy-or-ally world view of Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants, Iran occupied a spot somewhere in between _ a state seen as arrogant, enigmatic and driven by self interest, according to newly released al-Qaida documents. Yet there is also a sense that al-Qaida recognizes the importance of Iran's role in the region and the need to keep some level of dialogue. The papers _ seized in last year's raid on bin Laden's Pakistan hide-out and posted online Thursday by the U.S. Army's...

About 1,500 people have joined a protest by ethnic Albanians in Macedonia to demand a fair trial for five people suspected of murder in a case that has raised ethnic tension in the tiny country. The five have been charged with terrorism-related offenses over the murder of five Macedonian fishermen last month. Two of the suspects remain at large. The government has described the suspects as radical Islamists. Protesters at Friday's rally in the capital Skopje chanted "God is Great" and "Albanians...

An international human rights group said Friday that Kenyan security forces abused ethnic Somalis in Kenya's border region in response to attacks by militants from Somalia and have never been punished for the abuses. Human Rights Watch said in its Friday report that a woman was raped by a police officer at the world's largest refugee camp during a raid by Kenyan police in December. The group said other refugees were beaten, robbed and extorted. Kenya Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said Friday...

Hundreds of Kenyan youth who have trained with al-Qaida-linked militants in neighboring Somalia have returned home and now pose a major security threat to this East African nation, a top police official said Friday. Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said that a Kenyan man trained by al-Shabab militants in Somalia hurled a grenade into a church last Sunday, killing two people and wounding 15. Iteere released a photo of a man known only by the alias Amar. He said witnesses at the church were able...

The head of eastern Libya's self-declared semiautonomous region on Friday called for a boycott of next month's national vote for an assembly that would form a government and prepare for the country's new constitution. Ahmed al-Zubair claimed that the elections are just another tool to "marginalize" the east. His call is a sign of the tribal and political factionalism that plagues Libya after the fall of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year. The uprising against Gadhafi began in Benghazi,...

Police say they have arrested two men after a newspaper reported that some medical staff in Britain were offering to perform female genital mutilation. West Midlands Police said a 55-year-old and a 61-year-old were detained Friday in Birmingham, central England, on suspicion of offenses under the country's 2003 Female Genital Mutilation Act. The arrests follow a Sunday Times story that claimed reporters had secretly filmed a doctor, a dentist and an alternative medical practitioner who offered...

Police on Friday arrested eight people in Serbia's tense, ethnic-Albanian dominated south, five of them on suspicion of war crimes against Serb civilians during a 2001 conflict. The group was arrested in a police sweep in towns and villages in the region bordering Kosovo, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said. He said five people were arrested for alleged war crimes, two accused of resisting a police search, and one man on suspicion of weapons possession. Later in the day, masked special police...

Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan for Syria remains "on track," his spokesman insisted Friday, despite skepticism from the U.S. and others about the cease-fire that has been largely ignored by President Bashar Assad's forces. The assessment came a day after the Obama administration offered a bleaker view _ saying it may be time for the world to acknowledge that the cease-fire is not holding in Syria and seek another approach. "The Annan plan is on track and a crisis that has been going on for...

Five wounded British soldiers attempting to climb Mount Everest for charity have returned to base camp after being stranded for days at a high elevation camp because of bad weather. An expedition statement says the team had left base camp April 27 to make a practice run up to Camp 3 but were forced to stop at Camp 2 at 6,400 meters (21,000 feet) because of extreme winds. The climbers spent four days inside a tent surviving on reserve food supplies. They hope to reach Everest's peak to raise funds...

NATO's peacekeeping force will do all it can to prevent tensions in Kosovo from escalating because of this weekend's election in neighboring Serbia, the alliance's top official said Friday. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the force's "mission is to preserve a safe and secure environment for all people of Kosovo in an impartial way." Serbia is holding a general election on Sunday. Tensions have intensified on the eve of the ballot as Kosovo sought to block voting in Serb-dominated...

Families of Anders Behring Breivik's victims sought to balance the technical details of how they died with testimony Friday of how they lived before he unleashed a shooting spree on an island youth camp. The far-right fanatic, who has admitted to the massacre and a bombing in Oslo on July 22, listened impassively as lawyers for the bereaved read emotional statements and showed pictures from the victims' lives alongside the coroner's autopsy reports. "We will fight for your ideals, we will see...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday urged China to play a responsible role in the world by respecting human rights and helping to deal with challenges posed by Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs and violence in Syria and Sudan and South Sudan. As the two countries scrambled to resolve a diplomatic crisis over a blind Chinese legal activist who sought shelter at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Clinton did not mention Chen Guangcheng by name, but said she raise individual...