AP - Iraqi police say a roadside bomb has killed five people riding minibuses in Baghdad.

Reuters - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday he looked with "measured optimism" at relations with the United States despite differences over European security.

AP - South Korea's president said Wednesday that his government will make a fresh start, hours after an estimated 80,000 people gathered in the South Korean capital in the largest demonstration yet against the planned resumption of U.S. beef imports.

AP - President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both want to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons but they're standing on opposite sides of a revolving door. He's on his way out of office. She's trying to stay in.

AP - Evacuees hauled mattresses and carts down from temporary camps in the hills Wednesday after Chinese authorities declared the flood threat over from an earthquake-formed lake that was drained the day before.

AP - Investigators searched for a passenger list and examined the scorched hull of a jetliner Wednesday to determine what caused the plane to veer off a runway and burst into flames after landing in a thunderstorm in Sudan's capital.

AP - The sun is low in the mountains as Wang Wenying fries up potatoes, beans and chunks of braised duck over an outdoor wood fire.

AFP - China declared victory on Tuesday in its spectacular battle to drain a quake lake that threatened more than one million people, after finally engineering a controlled release of the water.

AP - City authorities vowed Tuesday to challenge a court order to move some 3,500 immigrants living in a camp near a popular tourist destination after they were forced from their homes in a wave of xenophobic violence.

AFP - Heir to the throne Prince Charles on Tuesday paid off a family debt incurred more than 350 years ago -- but was spared the accumulated interest that could have run into tens of thousands of pounds.

AP - The butler did it.

AP - About 80,000 protesters gathered in the South Korean capital Tuesday in the largest demonstration yet against the planned resumption of U.S. beef imports, as the entire Cabinet offered to resign in the uproar over the policy.

AP - Nearly a month after China's devastating earthquake, the Wolong Nature Reserve held a funeral Tuesday for a panda that was crushed in the temblor.

AP - President Bush and European allies on Tuesday threatened tougher sanctions to squeeze Iran's finances and derail its potential pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Bush said the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran would endanger world peace.