AFP - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has left South Africa after inking a raft of energy agreements with Pretoria, a senior government spokesman said Wednesday.

AFP - Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law says she is trapped in the Gaza Strip as Israel refuses to let her leave the Palestinian territory she entered aboard a protest boat.

AP - Official campaigning doesn't begin for another week, but potential successors to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda began rallying their forces Wednesday ahead of a vote to formally name his replacement.

AP - A day after sending Haitian families scrambling onto rooftops to avoid flooding, Tropical Storm Hanna was expected to begin moving over the Bahamas on Wednesday.

AP - A strike by anti-government labor unions fizzled out Wednesday, but protesters demanding the prime minister's resignation refused to lift a weeklong siege of his office, ignoring an emergency decree that has hardened Thailand's political deadlock.

AP - Women and children were among 15 people killed in an attack Wednesday involving U.S.-led forces in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan, officials and a resident said.

AP - Vice President Cheney arrived in Azerbaijan on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said, as part of a tour in support of Russia's southern neighbors.

AP - Australian special forces in Afghanistan detained four suspected Taliban militants captured in April in pens sometimes used to hold dogs, the defense minister said Tuesday.

AFP - Hundreds of thousands of flood victims huddled into makeshift camps in India and Nepal face major disease outbreaks if help fails to reach them quickly, aid workers warned Tuesday.

AP - A humanitarian aid flight carrying 17 people crashed while trying to land during a storm in remote eastern Congo, and all aboard were feared dead Tuesday.

AP - Hurricane Hanna slumped to tropical storm strength on Tuesday even as it caused killer floods, and forecasters said it still poses a hurricane threat to the U.S. East Coast.

AP - Iran on Tuesday banned the Tehran bureau chief for the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel and told him to leave the country as soon as possible, the network said.

AFP - Newcastle United denied Tuesday that manager Kevin Keegan had been sacked and said the Premier League club want him to remain in his job.

AP - Hungry villagers rioted, desperate families swam for their lives and chaos spread across a wide swath of flooded plains in northern India Tuesday as authorities mounted one of the country's largest relief efforts.