Jordan says it will contest a European ban prohibiting Britain from extraditing to the kingdom a radical Islamist cleric alleged to have close ties to al-Qaida.

A count who operates a zoological park on the grounds of his chateau outside Paris says some of his animals just can't take the cold this winter.

Egyptian authorities barred a British woman from leaving the country Friday because she is among those being targeted by an investigation into foreign-funded non-governmental organizations accused of fomenting unrest in the country.

Thousands of Slovaks are protesting in the capital to demand that top politicians accused of corruption step down.

The U.S. State Department recommends Americans avoid travel to all or parts of 14 of 31 Mexican states in the widest travel advisory since Mexico stepped up its drug war in 2006.

Russia's president has fired the police chief of St. Petersburg, where a 15-year-old boy died after being beaten while in police custody.

Pakistan has arrested two people in connection with last year's assassination of a former Afghan president who was trying to broker peace with the Taliban, two Afghan government officials said Friday.

Two suicide car bombers struck Syrian security compounds in Aleppo on Friday, killing 28 people, Syrian officials said, bringing significant violence for the first time to a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad in the 11-month-old uprising against his rule.

A Norwegian court has ruled that the right-wing extremist who confessed to killing 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree must undergo a second psychiatric evaluation against his will.

Peru's defense minister says one of two remaining fugitive leaders of the once-powerful Shining Path rebel group may have been wounded in combat with government forces.

Saudi Arabia's official press agency says one person was killed and three injured in a gunfight between "masked persons" and security forces in the country's eastern Qatif region.

Al-Qaida's decision to formally extend its terror franchise to what once was a nationalist movement in Somalia may only be a desperate joining of hands to prop up two militant groups that are both losing popular support and facing increasingly deadly military attacks, analysts said Friday.

The alleged mastermind of a radical Islamist sect's Christmas Day church bombing fled across Nigeria after escaping police custody and hid for about a month before finally being apprehended Friday, authorities said.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis rallied in cities across the country Friday calling for sweeping political changes as President Ali Abdullah Saleh approaches what appears to be the end of his 33-year rule.

Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria on Friday observed a holiday traditionally associated here with bees and honey.

It took 16 months of wrangling, but Bosnia finally has a new government - a leadership that promised to immediately tackle the country's economic problems, including its pressing lack of a budget.

The mysterious disappearance 11 years ago of a veteran U.S. Virgin Islands police officer that long vexed detectives has been solved, authorities said Friday.

London will be the first city in England to test electronic monitoring to force persistent alcohol offenders to stop drinking, Mayor Boris Johnson said Friday.

An Iranian semiofficial news agency reports that the Hamas prime minister of Gaza has arrived in Tehran. The visit may be an attempt by the Palestinian militant movement to avoid snubbing Iran even as it cultivates ties with the wealthy Gulf.

Politicians blamed an Irish Republican Army splinter group Friday for killing a man on the run from a death threat, the first such killing attributed to a shadowy gang that specializes in intimidating alleged drug dealers.

The United States says it has postponed a major military exercise in Mali because the Malian army is busy responding to attacks from Tuareg rebels.

Pakistan's top court rejected Friday a last-ditch appeal filed by the prime minister against a looming contempt charge, paving the way for a case that could plunge the nuclear-armed country into political turmoil.

In a Feb. 6 story about Finland's presidential election, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the result would restore the National Coalition Party to the presidency for the first time in 30 years. The correct figure is 56 years.

Armed tribesmen stopped a tourist bus and kidnapped three Korean women and their guide in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Friday, the region's security chief said.