NO EMISSION CUTS: In a move labeled as `business as usual' by Greenpeace, APEC would not set specific gas emission targets Australia's environment minister said
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member nations will not accept greenhouse gas emission targets to fight global climate change and creating energy-efficient economies is the way forward, Australia's environment minister said yesterday.

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Voters in Kazakhstan went to the polls yesterday in snap parliamentary elections seen as a key test of authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbayev's willingness to democratize this vast, oil-rich country.

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Vietnam's women's union plans to set up 40 information centers to teach prospective brides about the risks of overseas marriages arranged via illegal match-makers, state media said yesterday.

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Thirteen troops and dozens of Muslim extremists were killed yesterday in clashes between government forces and al-Qaeda-linked rebels on the southern island of Basilan, the military said.

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FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Voters went to the polls to choose either a US-style government with a strong president or a European-style parliamentary system
Thousands of Maldivians voted yesterday in a referendum many hailed as the tiny Indian Ocean nation's first real expression of democracy.

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POINTED MESSAGE: As joint Russian-Chinese military exercises drew to a close, 11 Russian long-range aircraft prompted a scramble of Norwegian F-16 fighter jets
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he ordered strategic bombers to resume regular long-range patrols as Russian and Chinese forces held their first joint military exercise on Russian soil -- a show of armed muscle aimed at sending a pointed message to the US.

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Iraq's Shiite prime minister carried an appeal for unity to Saddam Hussein's hometown and told Sunni tribal chieftains that all Iraqis must join to crush al-Qaeda in Iraq and extremist Shiite militias "to save our coming generations."

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In Africa's largest slum, uncollected waste has long posed an insurmountable health hazard but an ingenuous new energy-generating incineration program could help contain pollution.

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Two men claiming to be al-Qaeda members who hijacked a Turkish plane with more than 140 people on board gave themselves up at an airport in southern Turkey, peacefully ending the five-hour drama.

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A visiting delegation of Russian defense experts said Georgian officials have provided them with no convincing proof to support their assertions that a Russian plane entered the country's airspace and dropped a missile.

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FAMILY MATTERS: Elvira Arellano, who sought sanctuary in a US church a year ago to avoid being deported, risks being separated from her child, who is a US citizen
An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a church for more than a year to avoid deportation has left the sanctuary to attend an immigration rights rally in Los Angeles, California, a friend said.

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`CHAOS': First prisoners thought they would drown as water filled their cells up to their necks, but then Chincha Prison's walls collapsed and 683 inmates fled within minutes
As Peru's powerful earthquake brought down their prison's walls and lights, 66 guards could only watch helplessly while nearly 700 inmates escaped into the night.

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Seven Colombian officers accused of working for the country's biggest cocaine cartel were trained by the US military to help Colombia fight leftist rebels and its illegal drugs industry, a human rights group said on Friday.

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A mystery corpse found in a house in 1989 was identified on Friday as Lillian Jean O'Dare, a woman who vanished nearly 30 years ago, thanks to a new DNA technique, police said.

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A husband and wife who lead one of Brazil's largest evangelical churches were sentenced to nearly five months in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to smuggling more than US$56,000 into the US hidden in luggage, a child's backpack and a Bible case.

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Authorities investigating an adoption home in Guatemala said on Friday they had released two six-month-old babies to a US couple after determining their adoption was legal.

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