AFP - Australia is one of the least religious nations in the western world, research showed Friday, as the country prepares to host Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic World Youth Day celebrations this month.

AFP - North Korea said Friday it would not push ahead with an international deal to scrap its nuclear programme until negotiating partners fulfil their side of the bargain.

AFP - Rwandan President Paul Kagame threatened to charge French nationals over the 1994 genocide in his country if European courts did not reverse indictments on Rwandan officials, in an interview published Friday.

AP - Tropical Storm Douglas weakened to a depression off Mexico's coast on Thursday and was forecast to die at sea.

AFP - Bradford & Bingley said on Friday that US investment group TPG Capital had pulled out of an agreement to buy about one quarter of the struggling British bank.

AP - The plan was nothing if not audacious: A turncoat persuades rebels to bring together their most prized hostages and march them 90 miles through Colombia's wilderness. A month later, disguised commandos primed with acting lessons land in a helicopter and trick the rebels into handing them over.

AP - More than 50 people were injured Friday when a bomb went off at an outdoor concert in the Belarusian capital. Officials blamed "hooligans."

AP - A ferry sank in a river in Myanmar's cyclone-battered Irrawaddy delta, killing nearly 40 people, state-media reported Friday.

AP - Between surging oil prices, food inflation and a credit crunch that's depressed global growth, leaders from the Group of Eight economic powers face the gravest combination of economic woes in at least a decade when they gather next week.

AP - Hugo Chavez, once a key mediator in securing hostage releases from Colombian rebels, could do little more than phone congratulations to President Alvaro Uribe after this week's bold rescue.

AP - Alexander Downer announced Thursday he is quitting Australian politics following a career as the country's longest-serving foreign minister and one of its highest-profile leaders of the past decade.

AFP - Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina hit sparkling half-centuries to inspire India to the final of the Asia Cup with a six-wicket over Sri Lanka in a Super League match here Thursday.

AP - A spokesman for the U.S. mission here on Thursday denied Cuba's charge that American diplomats were instigating opposition protests linked to American independence day.