AFP - Cultural values are stopping Africa's leaders from speaking out against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime, Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal says.

AP - An al-Qaida front organization claimed responsibility Saturday for a suicide bombing that killed more than 20 people — including three Marines — as the U.S. military stepped up pressure on extremists in northern Iraq.

AFP - Some 50,000 fewer passengers are expected to use Amsterdam Schiphol airport, one of Europe's busiest, this summer on account of a Dutch environmental tax on flights, it was reported Saturday.

AP - This was a sleepy Navy outpost before the U.S. began using it to hold prisoners in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks — and it may soon become one again.

AP - Zimbabwe came under threat of further sanctions on Saturday as President Bush said the U.S. was working on new ways to punish longtime leader Robert Mugabe and his allies following the widely denounced presidential runoff election.

AP - Robert Mugabe's mother told him when he was a child that he had been chosen by God to be a great leader. No wonder he thinks only divine power — not elections, not foreign critics, not a crumbling economy or a much younger opposition leader — can unseat him.

AP - Pakistani forces bombarded suspected militant hideouts with mortar shells Saturday as the government launched a major offensive against Taliban fighters threatening the main city in the country's volatile northwest, officials said.

AFP - Australia has signed a deal giving airlines greater access to routes servicing South Africa and Kenya, Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday.

AFP - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed North Korea Saturday to take the next step and give up its atomic weaponry after it disclosed some nuclear secrets and demolished part of its reactor.

Reuters - Votes were being counted on Saturday in Zimbabwe's single candidate presidential election and state media predicted a landslide victory for President Robert Mugabe despite reports of low turnout in many areas.

AP - President Hugo Chavez says Venezuela has no plans to raise state-subsidized gasoline prices anytime soon.

AP - Israeli soldiers shot dead a West Bank teenager who threw Molotov cocktails at an army patrol, the army and Palestinian officials said Saturday.

Reuters - The United States and the European Union are near a deal on letting law enforcement and security agencies obtain private information like credit card transactions and travel histories about people on the other side of the Atlantic, The New York Times reported on Saturday.