World - AFP

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Cambodians looked set to extend Prime Minister Hun Sen's 23-year rule in elections Sunday, after a campaign overshadowed by a tense military standoff in a border dispute with Thailand.

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Hamas-run security forces stormed across Gaza on Saturday, clashing with rival Palestinian gunmen and arresting dozens of people after a bomb killed five of its senior militants and a little girl.

BELGRADE (AFP) - Radovan Karadzic's bid to dodge trial for war crimes was reportedly in the mail Saturday after his lawyers sent off an appeal at the last possible minute against his transfer to a UN tribunal.

LONDON (AFP) - White House hopeful Barack Obama wrapped up his adulation-soaked foreign tour Saturday, denying it was a premature victory lap, but admitting he could take a short-term hit in popularity back home.

APIA, Samoa (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice arrived here Saturday for regional talks aimed at urging Fiji to hold free elections next year.

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish police said Saturday they had arrested a 57-year-old Spanish woman they claim is the leader of the Spanish cell of Colombian Marxist rebel group FARC.

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuban president Raul Castro on Saturday was expected to announce more economic and social reforms in a speech marking the 55th anniversary of the country's communist revolution.

LONDON (AFP) - The whiff of rebellion is in the air in Britain after the third crushing by-election loss in as many months by the governing Labour Party of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, reviving talk of replacing him.

DUBLIN (AFP) - Nearly three-quarters of Irish voters are against holding a second referendum on the EU's key reform treaty, according to an opinion poll out Sunday.

KABUL (AFP) - Germany's foreign minister met Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday for talks that touched on Berlin's decision to boost its troops in Afghanistan to 4,500 next year, the president's office said.

SKOPJE (AFP) - Macedonia's parliament approved Saturday a new government presented by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who has promised to speed up reforms needed for the Balkan country to join the European Union.

KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine's president on Saturday asked the head of Orthodox Christianity to bless the creation of a Ukrainian Church independent of Russia, raising the stakes in a simmering spat with Moscow.

LONDON (AFP) - US presidential hopeful Barack Obama arrived in London Friday, the last scheduled stop on a world tour aimed at boosting his foreign policy credentials before elections later this year.

BELGRADE (AFP) - A deadline for Radovan Karadzic to appeal his transfer to the UN war crimes tribunal expired Saturday, but it remained unclear whether his lawyer has lodged a complaint.

NICOSIA (AFP) - Rival Cypriot leaders on Friday set September 3 as the date when they will begin direct negotiations on ending the island's 34-year-old division.

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - An advisor to President Omar al-Beshir threatened Friday that peacekeepers could be expelled from Darfur if the Sudanese leader is indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

MADRID (AFP) - King Juan Carlos and President Hugo Chavez patched up their differences Friday in their first meeting since the Spanish monarch told the Venezuelan president to "shut up" at a summit last year.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AFP) - Seven people, including a child, were killed in fierce sectarian clashes on Friday in Lebanon's northern port of Tripoli as fighters exchanged rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire, a security official said.

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered another serious blow to his leadership Friday after his governing Labour Party lost one of its safest seats in a by-election in his native Scotland.

MANILA (AFP) - A Qantas Boeing 747 flying to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila on Friday after a dramatic mid-air rupture that punched a "gaping hole" in its fuselage, officials and passengers said.

PARIS (AFP) - The Basque separatist group ETA suffered a new blow Friday with the arrest in France of two of its members, including one described by the French interior minister as a senior military commander.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The head of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) conceded Friday that his legal authority in the ethnic Albanian majority territory had been drastically curtailed since a new constitution went into force last month.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Polls opened in Cambodia on Sunday for legislative elections widely expected to extend Prime Minister Hun Sen's 23-year grip on power.

AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) - At least 29 people were killed and over 100 wounded Saturday in a string of more than a dozen coordinated bomb attacks in the tinderbox western Indian city of Ahmedabad, officials said.

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese authorities on Saturday denied claims by a Uighur separatist group that it was behind deadly bus bombings in two cities, state media reported.

AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) - At least 15 people were killed and over 100 wounded Saturday in a string of more than a dozen coordinated bomb attacks in the tinderbox western Indian city of Ahmedabad, officials said.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Negotiations in South Africa between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition were making progress Saturday, mediators said.

AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) - At least 15 people were killed and scores wounded Saturday in a string of coordinated bomb attacks in the tinderbox western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, officials said.