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LONDON - The United States was "hell bent" on a 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war, a former British diplomat told an inquiry Friday. Full Story »

MANAUS, Brazil - Brazil's president said that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, insisting rich Western nations have caused much more past environmental destruction than the loggers and farmers who cut and burn trees in the world's largest tropical rain forest. Full Story »

GENEVA - The campaign posters are inflammatory: Minarets rising like missiles from the national flag. Full Story »

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran summoned Norway's ambassador Friday and said the country had no right to criticize the Islamic Republic for confiscating Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi's medal. Full Story »

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has rejected a push by the resort island of Bali for rare turtles to be legally slain in Hindu ceremonies, siding with conservationists of the protected reptiles against religious advocates, an official said Friday. Full Story »

SHARIFF AGUAK, Philippines - Undeterred by the deadly attack that killed 57 in a campaign convoy, Ismael Mangudadatu filed to run for governor of Maguindanao province Friday, heavily guarded by police and soldiers. Full Story »

The killings starkly exposed a nationwide malaise: the fierce competition for regional power among the country's small Élite Full Story »

PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan - On what is more akin to a sunny winter's stroll, U.S. troops proudly tread on a newly asphalted road, past a refurbished mosque and a crowded market overflowing with produce. Children dance around the soldiers' boots and bearded men stop them for a casual chat. Full Story »

LONDON (AFP) - A scientist who wrote a racy blog and a best-selling book about being a prostitute has admitted she misses some parts of her old job as a call girl' Full Story »

BRUSSELS - Rom Houben's mother remembers her son's amazement when he finally started communicating again after spending 23 years locked in a paralyzed body that was misdiagnosed as vegetative. Full Story »

MINA, Saudi Arabia - Vast crowds of pilgrims cast stones at walls representing the devil on the third day of the annual hajj on Friday as Muslims around the world began celebrating Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar. Full Story »

KHAR, Pakistan - A key anti-Taliban tribal leader was assassinated Friday in a roadside bombing, the latest in a series of attacks against pro-government militias in the Afghan border area of northwestern Pakistan. Full Story »

AACHEN, Germany - A man accused of murdering Dutch civilians as a member of a Waffen SS hit squad said at his trial Friday that he was proud about being chosen as a volunteer to fight for the Nazis. Full Story »

The name of the place was, if anything, a synonym for bad luck but now it ison the trade highway between Peru and Brazil, between the Pacific and theAtlantic Full Story »

NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil - Drawing his .40-caliber pistol, Severiano Pontes dashes across the steaming, muddy jungle floor, a hunch telling him what he would find around a bend. Full Story »

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - The leaders of Britain and France gave their backing Friday to a global fund that would provide billions of dollars to poor countries to help them reduce the output of greenhouse gases linked to climate change. Full Story »

JOHANNESBURG - Equatorial Guinea — a violent land of coups, petrodollar wealth and killer poverty — is holding a presidential election Sunday that its leader of 30 years says he will win by more than the 97 percent garnered in the last widely criticized vote. Full Story »

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike wounded four Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Friday, Palestinian medical workers said, but Israel said one of them had been killed. Full Story »