Reuters - Russia fired a long-range Topol missile from a launch site in northern Russia Sunday.

AP - Taliban militants launched a surprise attack on a key southern Afghan town, sparking a battle that killed some 60 insurgents, an Afghan official said Sunday. A second clash in the same region killed another 40 militants.

AP - After North Korea relented on nuclear inspection demands, the U.S. on Saturday erased from a terrorism blacklist the communist country President Bush once branded part of an "axis of evil."

AP - The latest in a barrage of suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan's northwest killed five people, but none were believed to be foreign al-Qaida fighters, officials said Sunday.

AP - North Korea said Sunday it will resume dismantling its main nuclear facilities, hours after the United States removed the communist country from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.

Reuters - The United States on Saturday removed North Korea from its terrorism blacklist in a bid to revive faltering denuclearization talks in the final months of the Bush administration.

AP - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, locked in a standoff with the opposition in power-sharing talks, went ahead Saturday and laid claim to all key ministries as he tries to retain his iron grip on the struggling southern African nation.

AFP - Wayne Rooney scored twice as England kept their World Cup show on the road with a 5-1 Wembley win over group nine minnows Kazakhstan that was nothing like as convincing as the scoreline suggested.

AP - In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

AP - Two Pakistani intelligence officials say a suspected U.S. missile strike has killed three people near a market close to the Afghan border.

AP - Joerg Haider, who catapulted his party into a powerful force in Austrian politics with a mix of folksy aphorisms, in-your-face attacks on rivals and provocative praise of the Nazi era, died Saturday in a car accident. He was 58.

AP - Hurricane Norbert slammed into Mexico's southern Baja California peninsula on Saturday with torrential rains and screaming winds, forcing scores of people to flee flooded homes.