world

AP - Suicide bombings targeting religious minorities killed at least 23 people in Pakistan on Friday, driving up the toll of sectarian assaults in a country already battered by massive flooding.

AP - An Indonesian volcano that was quiet for four centuries shot a new, powerful burst of hot ash more than 10,000 feet (three kilometers) in the air Friday, sending frightened residents fleeing to safety for the second time this week.

AP - Pro-government militiamen attacked the home of an Iranian opposition leader with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, an opposition website reported, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally on Friday.

AP - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he saw and heard evidence that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy is taking hold in critical Kandahar province.

AP - Indonesia's smoking toddler has kicked the habit. Footage of 2-year-old Aldi Rizal — who smoked up to two packs a day — puffing away circulated the Internet in May and sparked an international outcry. His parents said he'd throw tantrums every time they tried to stop him from lighting up.

AFP - British police on Friday questioned one of three Pakistani cricketers embroiled in betting scam claims, as the sport's governing body said it had suspended the trio because they had a "case to answer".

AP - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Afghanistan's capital Thursday for meetings with President Hamid Karzai and top NATO commander Gen. David Petraeus.

AFP - Relief efforts in flood-ravaged Pakistan are being stretched by the "unprecedented scale" of the disaster, with the flow of international aid almost at a standstill, the UN said Thursday.

AP - Even as President Barack Obama was announcing the end of combat in Iraq, American soldiers were sealing off a northern village early Wednesday as their Iraqi partners raided houses and arrested dozens of suspected insurgents.

AP - Cuba on Tuesday released pictures of Fidel Castro with an American magazine correspondent and a Washington-based policy expert, while a Mexican newspaper published an interview in which the gray-bearded revolutionary expressed regret for past persecution of homosexuals.