MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's former drug czar was accused Friday of taking $450,000 from a powerful cartel, the highest-ranking official implicated so far in a corruption scandal over efforts by drug gangs to buy protection from the government....

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's courts continued a crackdown on activists Friday, handing out a 45-year prison sentence to a comedian who went to the delta to help cyclone victims and criticized the junta's slow relief response....

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- A radical Islamic group in Somalia said Friday it will fight the pirates holding a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil....

GOMA, Congo (AP) -- Shootings, looting and rape plague the already desperate lives of refugees in eastern Congo, where people caught between soldiers and rebels live in constant fear, U.N. officials said Friday....

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) -- Police said a bomb killed eight mourners at the funeral of a Shiite cleric gunned down Friday in northwestern Pakistan, fanning sectarian tension as the U.S. shifted consular staff from the region because of rising insecurity....

DHARMSALA, India (AP) -- Out of the hundreds of Tibetan leaders who have flocked here for a pivotal summit on Tibet's future, few understand the hardships there better than a recently arrived barley farmer....

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborately decorated 1,800-year-old chariot sheathed in bronze at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Friday....

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- European culture went digital - but it only lasted a day....

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Thousands of followers of a radical Shiite cleric protested a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security deal Friday, burning an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same square where Iraqis beat a toppled Saddam Hussein statue five years ago....

BEIJING (AP) -- A little over a quarter of the 70,000 people who died in a massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province in May have been identified, a Chinese official said Friday, as authorities rushed to prepare stricken areas for the coming winter....

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli police say Palestinian militants have fired a rocket at an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip. No casualties have been reported....

BEIJING (AP) -- China acknowledged Friday for the first time that more than 19,000 schoolchildren were among the dead in the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province in May....

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- The 5-year-old teetered on broomstick legs - he weighed less than 20 pounds, even after days of drinking enriched milk. Nearby, a 4-year-old girl hung from a strap attached to a scale, her wide eyes lifeless, her emaciated arms dangling weakly....

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer's books. The findings could put an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of Copernicus, a priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe....

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to impose sanctions on pirates, arms smugglers, and perpetrators of instability in Somalia in a fresh attempt to help end years of lawlessness in the Horn of Africa nation....

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A pre-dawn grenade attack on protesters occupying the offices of Thailand's prime minister killed one person and wounded 29, dimming hopes that the country's fractious political crisis might ease....

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Dubai developers threw a $20 million party Thursday complete with Hollywood celebrities Robert DeNiro and Charlize Theron and fireworks that lit up the evening sky....

CINCINNATI (AP) -- A father whose Army reservist son was captured, held hostage and killed in Iraq said Thursday that he's glad to learn one of the men responsible for his son's death has been "held accountable."...

KANYABAYONGA, Congo (AP) -- His home was looted by wild government soldiers still pillaging this empty hilltop town. His fields are at the mercy of armed militias. And somewhere in the countryside, a rebel army is digging in....

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used a meeting of his powerful political party to take center stage Thursday, casting himself as an indispensable leader even as the global financial meltdown threatens the achievements of his boom-time presidency....