A handful of protests were staged Thursday in Mexico against Arizona immigration law SB1070, and a Black Eyed Peas member this week joined other musicians such as Shakira and Kanye West in denouncing it.

Australian Aboriginals and environmentalists once allied to protect land. Now they’re split over whether struggling indigenous communities should exploit it for mining and other economic activity.

Russia President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into allegations that a top Kremlin official took huge bribes in connection with the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Analysts are unsure whether it's a sincere crackdown.

Guinnea-Bissau is an example of failed military reforms, despite efforts from 16 EU advisers over two years, says a Chatham House analyst. What comes next for a country that's now a major stopover point for cocaine to Europe?

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas won Arab League backing today to enter direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks – a step the US and Israel have been pushing for.

In an Islamic judicial system that has been criticized as biased against women, two women have been cleared to hear the same cases as their male colleagues in sharia court. They will join the bench on Aug. 2.

African leaders called for tougher measures against Islamist extremists in Somalia in the wake of the July 11 Uganda bombings. Eritrea is pushing for talks instead.

Japan angered abolitionists by executing two men this week, in the first hangings since the country’s center-left government took office in September. Tokyo's new government says it still has plans to review its use of the death penalty.

Governors from 19 northern states in Nigeria issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging southerner Goodluck Jonathan's right to run for president in January elections. It's potentially a big step in the racially divided country.

Arizona immigration law targeting immigrants has already encouraged Mexicans to begin returning home, even as a US judge halted key portions of SB1070 from taking effect. The Mexico government is boosting legal services in Arizona, and shelters in Sonora state are preparing for an influx.

A China flood, oil spill, and chemical factory explosion highlighted the country's improved crisis response. But China still faces challenges as it tries to strike a balance between economic growth and protecting the environment.

WikiLeaks intelligence led Britain Prime Minister David Cameron to imply that Pakistan is 'exporting terror.' He is refusing to back down from the statement, despite Pakistan's quick rebuttal and criticism.

In the Afghanistan war, it's quantity vs. quality: The USAID battle for hearts and minds is being lost just as President Obama's 'civilian surge' prepares to more than double annual assistance to $5 billion.

In the Afghanistan war for hearts and minds, foreign assistance succeeded when a village decided to go from torches to light bulbs

One battle in the other Afghanistan war: How a mismanaged $60 million USAID project alienated those it aimed to help.

After a decade of cancellations due to terrorist threats and bombings, a professional surfing competition may be returning to the perfect waves of the Bay of Grajagan, Indonesia.

Catalonia, the Spanish region where independence sentiment runs strong, voted to ban bullfighting in a move that some said stressed its differences from the rest of Spain. But the old pastimes popularity is fading, and activists said it was simply the humane thing to do.

Iraq film production remains nascent, but two directors are opening the country's first film production center in a bid to lure investors and bring native filmmakers back home.

More than 900,000 South African government workers will go on strike starting on Aug. 10 to demand an 8.6 percent wage increase.

Migrant leaders are crediting the South African government's quick response for preventing last week's xenophobic violence from mushrooming into something akin to the attacks of 2008 that left more than 60 dead.

AP - One of the top three leaders of Mexico's most powerful drug cartel died in a gunfight with soldiers Thursday, ending the long run of a mysterious capo considered a founder of the country's massive methamphetamine trade.

AP - A grenade exploded near a Bangkok shopping mall early Friday, injuring one person and rattling the Thai capital less than a week after a similar blast left a bystander dead and several more hospitalized.

AP - A French woman who admitted suffocating eight of her newborns and concealing their corpses in the garden and garage of her home has been charged with manslaughter.

AP - Militants flew an al-Qaida flag over a Baghdad neighborhood Thursday after killing 16 security officials and burning some of their bodies in a brazen afternoon attack that served as a grim reminder of continued insurgent strength in Iraq's capital.

AFP - A US senator said investigators could be sent to Britain to quiz witnesses who refused to travel to Washington to testify at a Senate probe into the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

AP - Syria on Thursday warned the United States to stop trying to interfere as Arab leaders try to defuse heightened tensions in the Middle East.

AFP - King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Thursday granted pardons or reduced sentences to nearly 1,000 people to mark his 11 years on the throne, the justice ministry said.

AP - House investigators accused veteran New York Rep. Charles Rangel of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards on Thursday, throwing a cloud over his four-decade political career and raising worries for fellow Democrats about the fall elections.

AP - The showdown over Arizona's immigration law played out in court and on Phoenix's sun-splashed streets on Thursday, as the state sought to reinstate key parts of the measure and angry protesters chanted that they refused to "live in fear." Dozens were arrested.

AP - A bill that would have provided up to $7.4 billion in aid to people sickened by World Trade Center dust fell short in the House on Thursday, raising the possibility that the bulk of compensation for the ill will come from a legal settlement hammered out in the federal courts.

AP - Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, as the cemetery's former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster.

AP - Even when the oily sheen starts fading from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, it manages to become bad news for fishermen.

AP - One of the top three leaders of Mexico's most powerful drug cartel died in a gunfight with soldiers Thursday, ending the long run of a mysterious capo considered a founder of the country's massive methamphetamine trade.

AP - Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.

AP - A criminal investigation into the leak of tens of thousands of secret Afghanistan war logs could go beyond the military, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday, and he did not rule out that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be a target.

AP - Ellen DeGeneres is dancing off "American Idol" after one season and Jennifer Lopez is poised to step in.

AP - Roy Oswalt granted his own wish: He's now part of a pennant race. Miguel Tejada, Jorge Cantu and Matt Capps joined the mix, too.

Reuters - Arizona on Thursday appealed a judge's decision to block key parts of the state's crackdown on illegal immigrants and police in Phoenix arrested scores of activists protesting the remaining measures in the law.

Reuters - Economic growth likely slowed in the second quarter as a capital investment drive by businesses was sated by imports and consumer spending tapered off, a government report is expected to show on Friday.

Reuters - More than 2,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, a panel of U.S. judges heard arguments from lawyers on Thursday on how piles of oil spill-related lawsuits against BP Plc should be merged.

Reuters - The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands, the Pentagon said on Thursday, warning its unprecedented leak of secret U.S. military files could cost lives and damage trust of allies.

Reuters - Mexican soldiers killed drug boss Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel on Thursday, the first major triumph this year for President Felipe Calderon's war against drug cartels but one that is unlikely to end spiraling violence.

AFP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said leaked US documents on the Afghan war posed grave risks for Americans in battle and for US relationships in the region.

AFP - Several hundred activists have marched through central Phoenix as a toned down new Arizona immigration law went into effect, sparking a tense standoff with riot police in which about two dozen people were arrested.

A French woman who admitted suffocating eight of her newborns and concealing their corpses in the garden and garage of her home has been charged with manslaughter, a prosecutor said Thursday.

The world's third most wanted Nazi suspect was involved in the entire process of killing Jews at the Belzec death camp: from taking victims from trains to pushing them into gas chambers, a German court says.

Despite billions in aid from Washington and a shared threat from extremists, Pakistanis have an overwhelmingly negative view of the United States, according to results of a Pew Research Center poll.

A senior U.S. military official and Afghan officials say the body of a second U.S. sailor who went missing in a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan has been recovered.

This strategic valley on the outskirts of Kandahar is on its third government boss in eight months. The first quit out of fear and frustration. The Taliban assassinated the second.

Vandals are increasingly on the prowl in Rome— and now Italian authorities are fighting back, sending more police and installing cameras to protect monuments and artworks.

Thousands of Israelis marched calmly Thursday in Jerusalem's longest gay pride parade despite opposition from anti-gay demonstrators.

In just a few days, new Prime Minister David Cameron has openly declared Britain is no more than the "junior partner" of the U.S., irritated Israelis by calling Gaza a prison camp and enraged Pakistanis by suggesting their country exports terrorism.

The chief official at the port where a Japanese tanker was docked a day after it was damaged at the mouth of the Persian Gulf said Thursday investigators now believe the ship was involved in a collision.

Militants flew an al-Qaida flag over a Baghdad neighborhood Thursday after killing 16 security officials and burning some of their bodies in a brazen afternoon attack that served as a grim reminder of continued insurgent strength in Iraq's capital.

Raging forest fires encircled a southern Russian city and tore through provincial villages Thursday, forcing mass evacuations as Moscow suffered through a record, weeks-long heat wave and smog cloud caused by peat-bog fires.

Anguished relatives sought the remains of loved ones killed in Pakistan's worst-ever plane crash, some grieving at a hospital collecting bodies Thursday and others joining the recovery effort at the hillside crash site laden by heavy rain and mud.