AP - Chanting “no to America,” supporters of a radical Shiite cleric burned an effigy of President George W. Bush Friday in a protest demanding parliament scuttle a U.S.-Iraqi security pact and American troops begin withdrawing from Iraq immediately.

AP - Looting soldiers tried to rape one woman and fatally shot another at a refugee camp, witnesses said Friday, as the United Nations prepared to send more peacekeepers to help protect traumatized civilians in eastern Congo.

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.

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.

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.

AP - Germany is dropping its pursuit of a ban on Scientology after finding insufficient evidence of illegal activity, security officials said Friday.

AP - Libya wants to open a new chapter in relations with the United States by investing some of its $100 billion sovereign wealth fund in U.S. companies and sending thousands of students to study in America, the son of Libya’s leader said Friday.

AP - U.S. first lady Laura Bush is touring a region of Peru struck by an earthquake last year.

AP - In a Nov. 20 story about African negotiations on global warming, The Associated Press erroneously reported that China refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. China has signed and ratified the pact, but like other developing nations was not asked to reduce its emissions under the 1997 protocol.

AFP - Eight Thai anti-government protesters were wounded, one critically, in a pre-dawn bomb attack in Bangkok Saturday, emergency services said, ramping up tensions a day ahead of a major rally.

AFP - An Australian mayor who invited ugly women to move to his outback mining town, saying even they would find a man there, has won the top “award” for the most sexist public comment of the year.