AFP - Aston Villa captain Gareth Barry is to stay with the Midlands club after repeated approaches from Premier League rivals Liverpool.

AP - A team of European scientists unveiled on Wednesday a new method for extracting images hidden under old masters' paintings, recreating a color portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.

AP - Zimbabwe will drop 10 zeros from its hyper-inflated currency — turning 10 billion dollars into one — the country's reserve bank said Wednesday. President Robert Mugabe threatened a state of emergency if businesses profiteer from the country's economic and political unraveling.

AP - The U.N. war-crimes tribunal at The Hague finally took custody of Radovan Karadzic on Wednesday — 13 years after the former Bosnian Serb leader went on the run — putting him in a jail where he was free to mingle with dozens of former allies and enemies.

AP - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Wednesday he will resign in September, throwing his country into political turmoil and raising doubts about progress for U.S.-backed Mideast peace efforts.

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 - 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.