AP - More factory closures and traffic restrictions could be in the works under an emergency plan to clean Beijing's noxious air for the Olympic Games, the government said Thursday.

AP - Turkey's ruling party has dropped for now its attempts to lift a decades-old ban on wearing Islamic head scarves in universities, a campaign that infuriated defenders of the country's secular principles and nearly brought down the government.

AP - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to leave office has dealt a serious setback to delicate peace negotiations with both the Palestinians and Syria.

AP - Every single man knows: Walking a dog in the park is a sure babe magnet. Saudi Arabia's Islamic religious police, in their zeal to keep the sexes apart, want to make sure the technique doesn't catch on here.

AP - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared at the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal for the first time Thursday, telling the judge he would defend himself against charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

AP - A rebellious New Zealand Maori tribe entered into negotiations with the government Thursday in a bid to gain autonomy over its land.

Reuters - A Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last year has been freed, his employers LUKOIL said on Thursday, hours before Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was due to host the country's prime minister.

AP - A former driver for Osama bin Laden denied Wednesday that he had sworn a loyalty oath to the al-Qaida leader, contradicting potentially damaging testimony from a Defense Department interrogator.

AFP - HBOS said on Thursday that net profits tumbled 56 percent in the first half of the year due to a sharp rise in credit-crunch write-downs and bad consumer debts that cannot be repaid.

AP - A Palestinian teen tracks Israeli troops with a video camera to document abuse of demonstrators.

AP - Iraqi police say a suicide car bomb attack has killed three policemen and wounded four others near the northern city of Mosul.

AP - Radovan Karadzic makes his first appearance Thursday before the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges that the former Bosnian Serb leader was behind massacres and atrocities against Muslims and Croats.