AP - Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear timeline" for the departure of U.S. troops. A suicide bomber struck north of Baghdad, killing at least five people including an American soldier.

AP - A reef of gold buried beneath this vast, parched grassland arcs across some of the world's poorest countries. Where the ore is rich, industrial mines carve it out. Where it's not, the poor sift the earth.

AP - VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — South Ossetian refugees on Sunday described being shelled and shot at and forced to run for their lives — leaving homes, family members and most of what they had behind. They talked of hiding in the woods, being mocked by Georgian soldiers and passing the dead on the roadside.

AP - Russian news agencies say the Defense Ministry is claiming to have sunk a Georgian missile boat that was trying to attack Russian navy ships in the Black Sea.

AFP - Thousands of people rallied in southern Australia Sunday to protest the dwindling water levels in one of the country's greatest rivers, claiming the loss was causing an environmental disaster.

AFP - Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed a rare meeting with her lawyer to discuss her ongoing house arrest, a spokesman for her party said Sunday.

AFP - A suicide bomber rammed a van full of explosives into a police post in eastern Algeria, killing seven people and injuring 19 others overnight, Algerian public radio reported Sunday.

AP - Hurricane Hernan reached Category 3 strength far out to sea on Saturday, becoming the first major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season.

AP - Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian cultural icon whose poetry eloquently told of his people's experiences of exile, occupation and infighting, died Saturday in Houston. He was 67.

AFP - Britain urged travellers to leave Georgia as soon as possible Sunday, after the explosion of violence between the ex-Soviet country and Russia.

AP - The U.S. military blamed al-Qaida in Iraq Saturday for a suicide car bombing in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, while an Iraqi official said the death toll in the attack had risen to 25.

AP - The fatal stabbing of the father of a former Olympian at a Beijing landmark cast a sad shadow over the first full day of Olympic competition Saturday, just hours after China's jubilant opening of the Summer Games.

AP - In an Olympic medley of sports and politics, President Bush on Sunday called for more religious freedom in China, sought an end to an escalating conflict between Russia and Georgia and cheered U.S. athletes as they dribbled and swam for the gold.

AP - Airstrikes and clashes north of Kabul have killed 11 people, some of whom might be civilians, Afghan officials said Sunday. In the south, five civilians died when their vehicle hit a mine, police said.

AP - Russia expanded its bombing blitz Sunday against neighboring U.S.-allied Georgia, targeting the country's capital for the first time while Georgian troops pulled out of the capital of the contested province of South Ossetia under heavy Russian shelling.