AP - A suicide squad detonated bombs at a newly fortified prison, police headquarters and two other locations late Saturday, killing at least 30 people in the largest city of the southern Taliban heartland.

AP - It often starts as a voice in the wilderness, but can swell into an entire nation's demand for truth. From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons.

AP - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's political coalition took an early vote lead Saturday in the election's all-important battleground of Baghdad, pulling away from its two closest rivals in the latest indication that Iraqis want a moderate government instead of Shiite religious hard-liners leading the postwar nation.

AP - The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland. It also insisted that church confidentiality doesn't prevent bishops from reporting abuse to police.

AP - An American al-Qaida suspect detained in Yemen fooled his hospital guards into unshackling him by asking to join them for prayers, security officials said Saturday. He then killed a guard who laid down his weapon as he went ahead at prayer time.

AP - A series of shootings killed 24 people Saturday in a Pacific coast state plagued by drug gang violence. Nearly half died in one shootout between soldiers and armed men.

AFP - The Central African Republic's government has said it had foiled a plan to launch a coup d'etat next week, with intelligence implicating former president Ange Felix Patasse who strongly denied any involvement.

AFP - A powerful quake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit off the eastern Indonesian island of Maluku on Sunday, seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued.