AP - Soldiers were ordered to deepen a diversion channel to speed the draining of an unstable earthquake-formed lake that was threatening to burst, state television said Friday.

AP - The accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said he welcomed martyrdom at U.S. hands, as he and four codefendants asked to be tried for war crimes without the benefit of lawyers.

AP - Myanmar's military junta has detained a popular comedian who had just returned from an aid trip to the cyclone-ravaged delta, a region where a human rights group said Thursday that the regime is forcing survivors to do menial labor for food.

AFP - International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Thursday pleaded with the UN Security Council to demand Khartoum arrest two Darfur war crimes suspects.

AP - Palestinian mortar fire killed a man at a factory in southern Israel on Thursday, prompting an Israeli reprisal airstrike that apparently missed its target and killed a 6-year-old girl in the Gaza Strip.

AFP - Kevin Pietersen's 115 rescued England from a top-order collapse on the first day of the third and final Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge here Thursday.

AP - The United Arab Emirates said Thursday it would name an ambassador to Baghdad in the coming days, making it the first Arab country to restore a full diplomatic mission to Iraq since Saddam Hussein's ouster.

AP - Turkey's top court ruled Thursday that Islamic head scarves violate secularism and cannot be allowed at universities, deepening a divide between the country's Islamic-oriented government and secular institutions.

AP - Arsema Dawit is the latest name on a somber list.

AP - U.S. and British diplomats were attacked Thursday as they tried to investigate political violence in Zimbabwe and a U.S. Embassy staffer was beaten, an embassy spokesman said.

AP - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said he would welcome becoming a "marytr" after a judge warned Thursday that he faces the death penalty for his confessed role as mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

AFP - A convicted Australian drug lord and accused murderer escaped to Greece aboard a luxury yacht in a million-dollar operation before being caught and extradited, police said on Thursday.

AP - Zimbabwe's opposition presidential candidate has resumed campaigning after spending nine hours in police detention in the country's second main city.