AP - Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad.

AP - The children's faces stare in somber black-and-white photos from newspapers and scribbled posters at relief camps, seeking their parents. Many will never find them.

AP - A U.S. helicopter strike north of Baghdad killed eight civilians, including several children, an Iraqi police official said Thursday. The U.S. military said the assault targeted al-Qaida fighters but acknowledged that children died.

AP - Indians fish from canoes along the curves of this Amazon tributary and tend manioc crops near the site of a proposed dam talked about for decades — but now pushing forward under Brazil's multi-billion-dollar construction spree.

AP - China said the toll of dead and missing from last week's powerful earthquake jumped to more than 80,000, while the government appealed Thursday for millions of tents to shelter homeless survivors.

AP - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon surveyed devastated sections of Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Thursday and said he was very upset by the conditions of cyclone survivors.

AFP - Forty-five Nigerian soldiers who just returned from a peacekeeping mission in Darfur have been killed in a road accident in the north of Nigeria, the army's chief of staff said Thursday.

AP - Israel's foreign minister is calling on Syria to cut its ties with Arab militant groups if it wants to reach peace with Israel.

Reuters - French unions staged nationwide protests on Thursday against plans by President Nicolas Sarkozy to make people work longer to qualify for a full pension.

AP - President Lee Myung-bak apologized Thursday to South Koreans over a beef import accord with the United States that has sparked fears of mad cow disease and sent his popularity plummeting in his first months in office.

AP - A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a truck loaded with explosives as he tried to ram a crucial crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel early Thursday, a spokesman for the militant Islamic Jihad said. No one else was wounded.

AP - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew into Myanmar's disaster zone Thursday as he pressed the country's leaders to open the doors to critical international aid for some 2.5 million cyclone survivors.

AP - China said the death toll from last week's powerful earthquake jumped to more than 51,000, as it appealed Thursday for millions of tents to shelter homeless survivors.