AP - Iraqi security forces arrested three locally prominent supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday as part of a crackdown on Shiite militias in the southern city of Amarah, police said.

AP - With Middle East tensions building, Iran's oil minister warned Wednesday that an attack on his country would provoke an unimaginably fierce response.

AP - Iran's foreign minister on Wednesday dismissed talk of a U.S. or Israeli attack against his country, calling the prospect of another war in the Middle East "craziness."

AP - A Palestinian man plowed an enormous construction vehicle into cars, buses and pedestrians on a busy street Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding at least 45 before he was shot dead by security officers.

AFP - New laws to prevent people "annoying" Catholic pilgrims during Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to Australia are likely to backfire and provoke both protesters and jesters, activists said Wednesday.

AP - South African President Thabo Mbeki says only Zimbabweans can resolve their crisis.

AP - Not long after two top commanders of Latin America's last major rebel army were killed — one in a raid, the other by a turncoat bodyguard — Diego Canizares decided to call it quits.

AP - Hezbollah instructors trained Shiite militiamen at remote camps in southern Iraq until three months ago when they slipped across the border to Iran — presumably to continue instruction on Iranian soil, according to two Shiite lawmakers and a top army officer.

AP - China's Communist Party boss in Tibet delivered a fresh attack on the Dalai Lama Wednesday, even as envoys of the region's exiled leader met for a second day with Chinese officials for talks aimed at easing tensions following anti-government riots.

AP - Pakistani security forces destroyed two major militant sites and arrested 18 resisting insurgents as part of an operation in the troubled Khyber tribal region that entered its fifth day Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said.

AP - A helicopter from the U.S.-led forces was shot down south of the Afghan capital Wednesday, but the crew escaped without serious injury, the coalition said.

AP - As crude soared to a new record, the head of the International Energy Agency declared that the world was in the grip of an "oil shock," and the president of OPEC acknowledged he could not say whether prices would flatten out or continue to soar.

AP - The cyclone that devastated Myanmar's heartland has also roiled a political landscape dominated by the military for more than four decades.