AP - Investigators found fragments that appeared to bolster the theory that an oxygen tank exploded on board a Qantas jet, forcing it to make an emergency landing with a car-sized hole in its fuselage, an official said Monday.

AP - In the flatlands north of Baghdad sits a prison with no prisoners. It holds something else: a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning and construction shortcuts costing $40 million and stretching back to the American overseers who replaced Saddam Hussein.

AP - Anti-terror squads have carried out raids in the search for leads into the deadly synchronized bombings that killed at least 45 people in western India over the weekend, police said Monday.

AP - Three suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 92, police said.

AP - A newspaper says police have detained three teenagers in connection to bomb blasts in a crowded Istanbul square that killed 17.

AFP - Four giant panda cubs have been born within just 14 hours in China, giving a rare boost to the population of the endangered species, state media said Sunday.

AFP - Egypt denied on Sunday that it had banned a book by a British journalist about Egyptian politics and society entitled "Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution."

AFP - Finland's already struggling paper makers are bracing for a new crunch as soaring Russian export duties on wood threaten to laden one of the Nordic country's most important sectors with a paralysing raw material shortage.

AP - The Chinese capital was shrouded in thick gray smog on Sunday, just 12 days before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. One expert warned that drastic measures enacted to cut vehicle and factory emissions in the city were no guarantee skies would be clear during competitions.

AP - Every evening for the past four months, a tall young man with soulful blue eyes has been stealing hearts across the Middle East, from the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip to the gated mansions of Riyadh.

AP - Ko Nyi Thaut lost six of his children and all his possessions when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar three months ago. But the 53-year-old farmer still has his rice fields. The surprise, say aid workers, is how quickly he and others have gone back to work.