AP - President Thabo Mbeki bowed to heavy pressure from his own party to resign Saturday, tossed to the sidelines of the economic powerhouse he built up as punishment for allegedly abusing his power in trying to quash a popular rival.

AP - A massive suicide truck bomb devastated the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Saturday, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 250. Officials feared there were dozens more dead inside the burning building.

AFP - At least 16 people have died as torrential rains and high winds lashed northern India, toppling trees and houses, officials said Saturday.

AFP - Nigeria's main armed militant group Saturday said it had destroyed a major pipeline run by Royal Dutch Shell in the sixth such attack in the past week as it vowed to paralyse the key oil sector.

AP - Iraqi officials say gunmen have killed a cleric loyal to U.S. foe Muqtada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra.

AFP - Lloyds TSB, fresh from clinching the takeover of distressed rival HBOS, has said it will sell new shares totalling about 5.0 percent of its issued capital.

AP - Four tropical storms have wiped out most of Haiti's food crops and damaged irrigation systems and pumping stations, raising the specter of acute hunger for millions in the impoverished country.

AP - China's food safety crisis widened Friday after the industrial chemical melamine was found in milk produced by three of the country's leading dairy companies — prompting stores, including Starbucks, to yank milk from their shelves.

AP - Prominent Palestinians are lighting a fire under Israel's feet by proposing a peace in which there would be no separate Palestine and Israel, but a single state with equal rights for all.

AP - A suicide car bomber attacked an army convoy in Pakistan's militant-plagued northwest Saturday, killing three civilians and three soldiers, an army spokesman said.

AFP - East Timor wants foreign troops to stay on its soil for at least one more year as instability is still a threat to the young nation, the prime minister said Friday.

AFP - North Korea is moving closer to restarting its nuclear reactor but the Bush administration is not about "to throw in the towel" on disarmament negotiations, the State Department said Friday.

AFP - Thousands of vulnerable civilians are feared to have been displaced by a recent upsurge of fighting in north Darfur, the United Nations head of humanitarian affairs for Sudan warned on Friday.

AP - A leading Human Rights Watch monitor said Friday that his expulsion from Venezuela shows the intolerance of President Hugo Chavez's government to criticism.