AFP - EU Commissioner Guenter Verheugen urged Bulgaria on Wednesday to step up its fight against crime and corruption, a problem that has already led Brussels to impose sanctions on Sofia.

AP - An upcoming concert by Paul McCartney has revived memories of the 1960s, when an Israeli official supposedly called off a Beatles concert for fear it would corrupt the nation's youth.

AP - The murder case was supposed to be simple: A jobless man accused of killing six police officers in a rare stabbing rampage in China's largest city.

AP - Pakistani troops drove off a Taliban attack on a fort and pounded another band of militants holed up in a health center, officials said Wednesday as fighting spread to a third area of the tribal belt along the Afghan border.

AP - Gustav swirled toward Cuba on Wednesday after triggering flooding and landslides that killed at least 22 people in the Caribbean. Its track pointed toward the U.S. Gulf coast, including Louisiana where Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc three years ago.

AP - A U.S. military ship loaded with aid docked at a southern Georgian port Wednesday, and Russia sent three missile boats to another Georgian port as the standoff escalated over a nation devastated by war with Russia.

AFP - Australian police said Wednesday they were investigating allegations that 13 former students were molested at a private Catholic boarding school for boys nearly 30 years ago.

AFP - A Singapore retail magnate pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two charges related to the city-state's first organ trading case, local radio reported.

Reuters - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will form a new government soon but he says the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) does not want to join the new administration, state media reported on Wednesday.

AFP - Thousands of people suffering from a disease causing blindness can have their eyesight restored after the NHS was granted access to a new drug Wednesday.

AP - Dissidents in Malaysia's ruling party demanded the prime minister's resignation Wednesday after opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim returned to Parliament with a sweeping election victory.

AP - The hijackers of a plane that took off from Sudan's Darfur region were refusing to negotiate Wednesday after landing at a remote desert airfield in southern Libya, the official Libyan news agency reported.

AP - More than 30 Taliban fighters and four policemen were killed in a series of clashes, airstrikes and bombings in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.