British officials say five soldiers have been killed on patrol in Afghanistan.

Millions of Argentines stayed home from work, churches in Bolivia canceled Mass and Ecuador announced its first fatalities from swine flu on Friday, as the virus continues its spread during the South American winter season.

Two men were killed and one remains missing after a tornado ripped through a tourist resort in northwestern Ontario.

Nigeria's main militant group says its has destroyed a recently repaired Chevron oil pipeline.

The publisher of a British tabloid owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch denied on Friday a report that it had accessed the voice mail of celebrities and politicians and tried to suppress evidence of the hacking.

For all the smiles and upbeat talk, the just-ended Group of Eight summit showed how unwieldy the forum has become, run by Cold War-vintage powers while relegating the world's fastest growing economies - China, India and Brazil - to observers.

Crammed into rickety vans with electric fans and sacks of flour roped to the roof, the first of Pakistan's 2 million refugees have begun returning to their homes after the army said it expelled Taliban militants from some northern strongholds.

President Barack Obama wrapped up a three-day summit of world leaders Friday and met with Pope Benedict XVI, his first face-to-face meeting with the spiritual leader of the world's Roman Catholics.

Just getting thousands of protesters into the streets of Tehran despite fears of beating and arrest was a victory for the Iranian opposition, but the first protest in nearly two weeks also displayed the movement's limitations.

Turkey's prime minister on Friday compared ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang province to genocide, escalating criticism of Beijing following this week's killing of at least 156 people - including Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uighurs.

International observers said on Friday that political interference had delayed the vote count of last month's general election in Albania.

A Paris court on Friday convicted a gang leader of the brutal 2006 killing of a young man prosecutors said was targeted because he was Jewish.

Robert Plant received a royal honor from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace on Friday, putting the former Led Zeppelin front man one notch above his old band mate Jimmy Page.

Nelson Mandela has distanced himself from a London exhibition of disputed lithographs bearing his signature, his lawyer said Friday.

A British-Greek journalist released from jail in Iran said Friday that he had been blindfolded, held in solitary confinement and subjected to frequent interrogations.

The mother of a British soldier killed in Iraq four years ago while traveling in a light Land Rover won the right on Friday to have a legal review of the use of the controversial vehicle.

Two ships using U.S. listening devices to search for the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 were ending their hunt Friday, an American commander said.

The wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has kept a blog of her activities on the sidelines of the G-8 Summit, stepping up attempts to boost her public profile while her husband's popularity is plummeting.

Thousands of mourners bowed their heads in tribute Friday to the passing coffins of British soldiers killed in a new offensive in Afghanistan, where the climbing toll has created doubts in Britain about the human cost of the war.

Pope Benedict XVI stressed the church's opposition to abortion and stem cell research in his first meeting with President Barack Obama on Friday, pressing the Vatican's case with the U.S. leader who is already under fire on those issues from some conservative Catholics and bishops back home.

VATICAN CITY - President Barack Obama wrapped up a three-day summit of world leaders Friday and headed to the Vatican to meet with Pope Benedict XVI in what aides said would be a meeting that was different from those with secular heads of state.

From the rampart of a whitewashed fort once used to ship countless slaves from Africa to the Americas, Cheryl Hardin gazed through watery eyes at the route forcibly taken across the sea by her ancestors centuries before.

Police said Friday they have launched a criminal investigation to determine if British intelligence officers were aware of the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who claims he was tortured while being detained in Guantanamo, Pakistan and Morocco.

Britain's royal family has extended its kingdom further into cyberspace and joined Twitter - but don't expect Her Majesty to tweet.