AP - Israel has refused for the third day in a row to fully open crossings with the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rocket attacks. The rockets and closure both constitute violations of a cease-fire that began June 19.

AFP - The famous Glastonbury music festival gets underway Friday, with all eyes on how well US rapper Jay-Z goes down as hip-hop hits hippiedom.

AP - Search teams combed the dense jungle Friday for a missing Indonesian air force plane carrying 18 people, a military spokesman said Friday.

AP - South Korea began inspecting U.S. beef Friday as hundreds of labor activists blocked customs storage facilities for a second day following the government's decision to lift its ban on American beef imports.

AP - Iraq's Higher Judicial Council says a senior judge has been assassinated while he was headed home in Baghdad.

AP - Groups of people led by apparent ruling-party marshals lined up at polling stations Friday to vote in Zimbabwe's one-candidate presidential runoff, an election condemned by world leaders and expected to deepen the southern African nation's political crisis.

AP - North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday, according to a news report, in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.

AP - East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by rebel soldiers earlier this year, said Thursday he is considering taking a new job as U.N. human rights chief.

Reuters - North Korea handed over a long-delayed account of its nuclear activities on Thursday, prompting a still-wary U.S. President George W. Bush to ease some sanctions on a country he once deemed part of an "axis of evil."

AP - The Zimbabwe opposition party's No. 2 official was freed on bail Thursday, two weeks after being arrested and charged with treason.

AP - An Israeli military exercise over the Mediterranean appears to have been less a dry run for an attack on Iran than a message that Tehran must curb its nuclear ambitions, according to officials and experts.

AFP - French auto giant Renault said Thursday it is increasing its prices by an average of 1.5 percent to help offset rising raw material costs.

AP - Militants attacked troops from the U.S.-led coalition patrolling south of the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing three of them and an Afghan interpreter.

AP - A suicide bomber attacked a meeting of pro-government Sunni sheiks west of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 20 people. The U.S. military acknowledged coalition casualties but did not say how many.