AP - Chinese celebrated their nation's first spacewalk Saturday, gathering at outdoor TV screens to cheer live video of the milestone for a program that has ambitions of building a space station and challenging the U.S. and Russia in offworld exploration.

AP - A U.S. destroyer off the coast of Somalia closed in Saturday on a hijacked Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and ammunition, watching it to ensure the pirates who seized it do not try to remove any cargo or crew.

AFP - China's three astronauts prepared Saturday for the nation's first ever space walk as the country waited with bated breath to see if the manoeuvre, deemed highly risky, would be successful.

AP - Voters are expected to easily approve this chronically unstable nation's 20th constitution on Sunday, expanding President Rafael Correa's powers and letting the pugnacious leftist run for two more consecutive terms.

AP - Taliban militants on Saturday released the last of approximately 150 Afghan laborers they had abducted for almost a week after suspecting the workers of being Afghan soldiers, officials said.

AFP - British mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley, which has been hit by a housing downturn and weakness in the wider economy, may be nationalised, according to newspaper reports.

AP - Pakistan's security forces pounded militant positions near strategic areas in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing 25 suspected insurgents in a new round of a military offensive that also left three troops dead, officials said.

AP - Iraq's foreign minister says "there is a new world now" because of the global financial crisis and he hopes it won't lead to an immediate withdrawal of the 146,000 American troops in his country.

AP - Astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou 7 spacecraft were making final preparations for the country's first-ever spacewalk planned for Saturday afternoon.

AFP - Chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff Admiral Michael Mullen Friday sought to ease tensions with Pakistan after an incident on the Afghan-Pakistan border, urging calm cooperation.