AP - A drunken night in a New York strip club four years ago by a lawmaker who is trying to become the next prime minister has turned the spotlight on Australian politicians’ private lives.
AFP - A pro-junta mob broke up a rare protest by about 150 pro-democracy activists in Myanmar's main city Yangon on Wednesday amid mounting public anger over a massive fuel price hike.
AFP - Talks between the Sudanese government and rebel factions to try to end the four-year conflict in Darfur could start in October, the African Union's special envoy for Sudan said on Wednesday.
AP - Hurricane Dean flooded a major Mexican oil city Wednesday, but there was no known damage to any of the country’s production facilities on shore or in the Gulf of Mexico, the state-owned company said.
AP - One of Egypt’s most outspoken government critics, an Egyptian-American academic, said he has been warned not to return to his native country for fear of arrest “or worse” amid a crackdown on dissidents.
AFP - Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday set out details of a new global initiative aimed at boosting healthcare for the world's poorest nations.
AP - State-run Spanish television has quietly yanked live coverage of bullfighting from its programming, ending a decades-old tradition of showcasing the national pastime out of concern that the deadly duel between matador and beast is too violent for children.
AP - A sprawling Hurricane Dean slammed into Mexico for the second time in as many days Wednesday and quickly stretched across to the Pacific Ocean, drenching the central mountains with rain that swelled rivers and flooded houses along the coast.
AP - Opposition leader Kevin Rudd’s drunken night in a New York strip club four years ago may have shaken his chances of becoming Australia’s next prime minister and has turned the spotlight on the private lives of lawmakers.
Reuters - Excessive amounts of lead paint on
toys and other children's products led the U.S. Consumer
Product Safety Commission to issue a recall of more than
300,000 Chinese-made items on Wednesday.
AP - A volcano that erupted for three days last week killed three people and forced the evacuation of 2,000, Ethiopian officials said Wednesday.
AP - Venezuela’s National Assembly, dominated by allies of President Hugo Chavez, gave unanimous initial approval Tuesday to constitutional reforms that would allow him to run for re-election and possibly govern for decades to come.
AP - The chief judge briefly ejected two former aides to Saddam Hussein from the courtroom for unruly behavior Wednesday on the second day of a trial over the brutal suppression of a 1991 rebellion by Shiite Muslims.
Reuters - Belarus said on Wednesday that it was
retaliating against punitive Western measures by toughening
rules for U.S. officials wanting to visit the ex-Soviet state,
but promised to make entry easier for other travelers.
AP - Iraq’s prime minister lashed out Wednesday at U.S. criticism, saying no one has the right to impose timetables on his elected government and that his country “can find friends elsewhere.”