Reuters - Pro-junta thugs broke up a rally by supporters of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, detaining three people among a crowd chanting for her release on her 63rd birthday, a senior opposition member said.

Reuters - Zimbabwe's opposition MDC has launched an urgent court action to appeal a state-media ban on its advertisements and media cover of the party ahead of next week's presidential run-off election, a spokesman said on Thursday.

AP - President Cristina Fernandez told thousands of supporters Wednesday that a three-month strike against grain export-tax hikes was undemocratic and demanded that farmers lift road blockades that have caused food shortages across Argentina.

Reuters - A Brussels-based journalists' rights group has welcomed criminal charges against three men in the killing of Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya, but said those who ordered the murder must be held accountable.

AP - Afghan and NATO forces have cleared Taliban militants from a strategic group of villages they had infiltrated outside southern Afghanistan's largest city, Afghan officials said Thursday.

AP - China completed the evacuation of 110,000 people from an area near the epicenter of last month's deadly earthquake over fears of possible landslides triggered by annual heavy rains, state media reported Thursday.

AP - Royal Dutch Shell said it shut down production at an offshore oil installation that produces about 200,000 barrels per day after the most powerful militant group in Nigeria said it launched an attack there Thursday.

AP - Guns went quiet as a six-month truce between Israel and Gaza Strip militants took effect early Thursday, but there was widespread skepticism about its ability to hold.

AP - A drought crisis needed urgent attention or a crucial Australian river system could suffer permanent ecological damage by October, a government minister warned Wednesday.

Reuters - U.S. and Chinese officials were to wrap up two days of economic talks on Wednesday with agreements to expand energy cooperation and investment but with differences remaining on how quickly Beijing should liberalize its markets.

Reuters - The son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a leader of a 2004 coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea that was backed by Spain and South Africa, a British mercenary told a court on Wednesday.

AP - Food manufacturers promised Mexico's government to freeze prices on more than 150 food products Wednesday to help families cope with rising costs.

AP - Offering a cigarette is as common as a handshake in Egypt, where the culture of smoking is so entrenched that patients sometimes light up in hospital rooms. But now the government is getting serious about the health risks, launching a new campaign of stark visual warnings about tobacco's dangers.