Reuters - Investigators looking at whether an
exploding oxygen bottle blew a large hole in the side of a
Qantas 747 said on Wednesday part of a bottle burst into the
plane's cabin and partly moved a door lock. The Qantas 747-400
suffered a loss of cabin pressure during a flight from Hong
Kong to Melbourne last Friday, forcing the plane to make an
emergency descent from 29,000 feet to 10,000 feet before
landing safely in Manila in the Philippines.
AFP - Pakistani troops Wednesday killed 20 Taliban militants and imposed a curfew in the northwestern Swat valley to prevent further deterioration of a two-month-old peace deal, officials said.
AFP - The breakdown of talks on a world trade pact has "gravely undermined" efforts by African countries to fight poverty, Kenya's trade minister warned on Wednesday.
AP - Half-year figures are expected to show the first sustained decline on record in remittances sent home by Mexicans working abroad, officials said. -- read full article
AP - A security official says gunmen have attacked a Lebanese military post in the country's east, killing one soldier and wounding another. -- read full article
AP - Germany's high court says smoking bans in two states are unconstitutional. The decision forces most state governments to review their own prohibitions. -- read full article
AP - The International Olympic Committee agreed Tuesday to allow Iraq to participate in the Beijing games, reversing itself after Baghdad pledged to ensure the independence of its national Olympics panel.
AP - Lost in the rocky, remote Australian Outback, a former pest exterminator faced dehydration and death. Desperate for food, he turned to what he knew best — bugs, he said Wednesday. -- read full article
AP - Pakistan imposed a round-the-clock curfew in a restive mountain valley in the northwest on Wednesday as the army claimed more than 20 militants died in clashes with security forces.
AP - Flooding and poor harvests have caused North Korea's worst food crisis since the late 1990s and have put millions at risk, the United Nations' food agency said Wednesday.
AP - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a U.N. jail cell Wednesday after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
AP - Starbucks will close more than two-thirds of its 84 stores in Australia by the end of the week under a cost-cutting plan announced Tuesday that will put almost 700 people out of work. -- read full article
AFP - The head of the World Trade Organization said Tuesday that talks to broker a new global trade pact had collapsed because key powers were unable to bridge their differences on food tariffs.
AP - A former dormitory matron at Oprah Winfrey's school for poor South African girls pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges that she indecently assaulted and otherwise abused six teenagers and a fellow matron at the academy.
AP - Israeli gunfire killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy Tuesday during a confrontation between troops and stone-throwers in a West Bank village, medics and witnesses said.
