AP - A bomb ripped through a bus carrying civilians and members of the military during Wednesday morning rush hour in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing 18 people and wounding 40, security officials said.

AP - The head of Georgia's national security council said Wednesday that 50 Russian tanks had entered the strategic Georgian city of Gori, and another top Georgian official said his country's troops were completely driven from the separatist province of Abkhazia.

AFP - Australia will support a civilian atomic energy deal between India and the United States at a meeting of key nuclear supplier states, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said here Tuesday.

AFP - Japan and North Korea agreed Wednesday to complete this autumn a new probe into Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese, a longtime source of conflict, with Tokyo granted access to the secretive state.

AFP - Rape is increasingly being used as a tool of war in ethnic conflicts in Darfur and Myanmar, wrecking families and communities, two women Nobel peace laureates warned Tuesday.

AP - A female suicide bomber blasted an Iraqi convoy north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing two people but narrowly missing a provincial governor in the second suicide attack by a woman in Diyala province in as many days.

AP - The Dalai Lama sent China a message of good will for the Olympics and skirted the contentious issue of Tibet at the start of his 12-day visit to France on Tuesday.

AP - Thousands of sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, jade and other gems glitter in long glass display cases as merchants haggle with professional buyers — most of them foreigners — and tourists.

AP - One little girl had the looks. The other had the voice.

AP - The Pakistani Taliban declared "open war" Tuesday in response to military offensives in the northwest, saying it staged a bombing that destroyed an air force truck and killed up to 14 people, including a child.

AP - Abu Ali has had enough of war. Nothing, he insists, can change his mind.

AP - Russia ordered a halt to the war in Georgia on Tuesday, after five days of air and land attacks that sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns, military bases and homes in the U.S. ally smoldering. Georgia insisted that Russian forces were still bombing and shelling.