AFP - Afghan forces backed up by Canadian NATO troops pushed into villages near the strategic city of Kandahar in a major "clean-up" operation to drive out entrenched Taliban rebels.

Reuters - South African President Thabo Mbeki will meet Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe on Wednesday for talks ahead of next week's presidential election run-off, Mbeki's spokesman said.

AP - Taxi driver Saif Khadour swears by his recipe to keep his cherry-red Mercedes Benz on the road: four parts cooking oil to one part turpentine.

AP - Israel confirmed Wednesday that a cease-fire with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip will begin Thursday.

AP - Iraq's government vowed Wednesday to defeat "the terrorists" after a car bomb killed at least 51 people on a bustling street in a Shiite area of Baghdad and resolved to defend the security gains of the past year.

AP - Afghan and Canadian forces moved into a series of villages outside of southern Afghanistan's largest city on Wednesday to root out any Taliban who have infiltrated the area, officials said.

AP - Hundreds of security personnel lined the streets to head off any disruption as the Olympic torch relay resumed Wednesday in western China's restive Muslim region of Xinjiang.

AP - Al-Qaida-linked militants freed a popular TV news anchor, her cameraman and a university professor late Tuesday, more than a week after snatching them in the volatile southern Philippines, police said.

AFP - Two Algerian converts to Christianity were due to appear before an Algerian criminal court on Wednesday accused of proselytizing, said head of the country's Protestant church Mustapha Krim.

AP - Iran said Tuesday that it would continue uranium enrichment despite warnings of new European sanctions if it rejects an international incentive package aimed at reining in its nuclear program.

AP - Tents, sacks of food and a replica of a burnt-out village hut appeared in Trafalgar Square on Tuesday as a tourist hotspot became a refugee camp to highlight the plight of millions of people displaced in Darfur and elsewhere.