AP - Russian troops on Sunday began dismantling positions in the so-called security zones inside Georgia that they have occupied since August's war, Georgian and EU officials said, a sign Russia will fulfill its pledged pullback.

AP - The Taliban are furious about the latest apparent U.S. missile strike in Pakistan, indicating a senior militant may be among two dozen people killed, officials and residents said Sunday.

AFP - Australia's central bank is expected to cut interest rates by up to 50 basis points due to the global financial crisis when its board meets Tuesday, economists said.

AFP - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, rumoured to have suffered a stroke, has sent a signal he has recovered and is back in control with his first reported public outing in 51 days, analysts said Sunday.

AP - When Richard Maponya did well as a clothes salesman, his white boss could not promote him under the rules of apartheid.

AP - When critically obese, bedridden Jose Luis Garza pleaded for help in shedding a few hundred pounds, he landed the world's biggest weight watcher.

AP - An American member of al-Qaida pointed to economic troubles in the United States as proof that "the enemies of Islam" face defeat, in an English-language video released Saturday.

AP - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il watched a university soccer game, a state-run news agency said from Pyongyang on Saturday, reporting on the leader's first public appearance in nearly two months.

AP - Armed pirates aboard fast-moving skiffs have increasingly turned the shipping lanes off Somalia into a lucrative hunting grounds: commandeering vessels large and small and leaving the world's maritime powers frustrated about how to stop the seafaring bandits.

AP - Officials say a roadside bomb attack on a British convoy in Basra has injured an Iraqi civilian.

AP - The Taliban are unusually angry about the latest suspected U.S. missile strike in Pakistan, a sign a top militant may have died in the attack, officials and residents said Sunday amid reports the death toll rose by two to 24.

AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday rejected any suggestion that U.S. efforts to build closer ties to this former Soviet republic are meant to undermine Russian influence in Central Asia.

AFP - Indian police have arrested a Muslim man in connection with a bomb blast in the west of the country that killed seven people and wounded more than 80, the Press Trust of India reported Saturday.

AFP - Ethiopia, which subsidises petrol, has raised prices by more than five percent and public transport fares accordingly, the government said in a statement received by AFP on Saturday.