AP - When Bangladesh's military-backed government arrested more than 10,000 people, human rights activists denounced it as a political crackdown six months ahead of elections at the end of this year meant to restore elected government. In Washington, the Bush administration was largely silent.

AP - A 7.2-magnitude earthquake ripped across mountains and rice fields in northern Japan on Saturday, killing at least three people as it sheared off hillsides, jolted buildings and shook nuclear power plants. At least seven people were missing.

AP - Soaring oil and food prices are emerging as serious threats to global economic growth, finance ministers from the world's top industrialized nations said Saturday, while vowing to work together to address the problem.

AP - Hospital patients in wheelchairs and on stretchers were evacuated in the middle of the night as the biggest flood Cedar Rapids has ever seen swamped more than 400 blocks Friday and all but cut off the supply of clean drinking water in the city of 120,000.

AP - French President Nicolas Sarkozy energetically greeted President Bush on Saturday for private talks, the latest sign of the warming in U.S.-European relations that Bush has touted all week in his travels abroad.

AP - Tim Russert, a political lifer who made a TV career of his passion with unrelenting questioning of the powerful and influential, died of a heart attack Friday in the midst of a presidential campaign he'd covered with trademark intensity. Praise poured in from the biggest names in politics, some recalling their own meltdown moments on his hot seat.

AFP - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe raised the spectre of war on Friday if his arch-rival triumphs in a June 27 election, while the opposition accused authorities of trying to "cripple" their campaign.

AFP - Irish voters dealt a stunning blow to the European Union's grand reform plans Friday by rejecting a new treaty and plunging the bloc into a new crisis.

Reuters - The U.S. general who recently handed over command of NATO troops in Afghanistan cast doubt on Friday on the ability of Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary force to combat Islamist militants.

Reuters - The EU's top diplomat said he would hand Iran a generous offer on Saturday aimed at resolving a deepening dispute over its nuclear ambitions that has helped push up oil prices to record highs.

Reuters - The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Guantanamo prisoners have constitutional rights has fundamentally changed the rules for trying them and could bring down the special war crimes court, defense lawyers said.

Reuters - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said on Friday liberation war veterans would take up arms if he loses a June 27 presidential run-off vote.

Reuters - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday talks with the United States on a long-term security pact were at a stalemate because of U.S. demands that encroached on Iraq's sovereignty.

Reuters - Irish voters rejected a treaty on Friday to overhaul the European Union's unwieldy institutions, putting the entire bloc's reform plan in peril and humiliating Ireland's political leaders.

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain failed to agree on Friday on holding a series of face-to-face town hall meetings and each side blamed the other for an inability to reach an accord.