AP - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says his country's oil exports to China could soar to 1 million barrels a day by 2012.

AP - A militant group that claimed to be behind the deadly Marriott Hotel bombing in Pakistan's capital threatened more attacks Wednesday, warning again that Pakistanis should stop cooperating with the United States.

AP - Iraq's parliament overwhelmingly approved a provincial elections law Wednesday, overcoming months of deadlock and giving a boost to U.S.-backed national reconciliation efforts.

AP - Iran is nearing the ability to arm a nuclear warhead even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful, the European Union warned Wednesday.

AP - The government pledged Wednesday to tighten Finland's gun laws and keep mentally unstable people from obtaining firearms following the country's second school massacre in less than a year.

AP - North Korea barred U.N. nuclear inspectors from its main plutonium reprocessing plant Wednesday and within a week plans to reactivate the facility that once provided the fissile material for its atomic test explosion, a senior U.N. nuclear inspector said.

AFP - Asian economic growth will slow at some point but demand for raw materials from countries such as China is expected to continue, the chairman of the world's largest mining company said Wednesday.

Reuters - China has brought a tainted milk scandal in which thousands of children fell ill with kidney stones under control, a senior official said on Wednesday, as Premier Wen Jiabao vowed tougher controls.

AP - As of Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008, at least 4,170 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AFP - The Bank of England on Wednesday made an additional 21.5 billion pounds available to financial institutions on a short-term loan basis.

AP - A police official says a bomb blast in the capital has wounded Kabul's chief criminal investigator.