AP - Asia-Pacific powers on Thursday put the finishing touches on an ambitious plan that calls for pooling their military and civilian resources to respond to disasters in a region beset by cyclones, earthquakes and floods.

AP - A proposed new constitution grants Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa broad powers including the ability to dissolve Congress and set monetary policy, and would let him stay in office through 2017.

AP - From the solemnity of a Holocaust museum to a dusty village battered by Hamas rockets, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Wednesday professed "an unshakable commitment to the security" of Israel, whether the threat comes from terrorists, Iran or elsewhere.

AP - Al-Qaida's foreign fighters who have for years bedeviled Iraq are increasingly going to Afghanistan to fight instead, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States said Wednesday.

AP - A homemade bomb ripped through a commuter bus in the southern Philippines on Thursday, wounding 27 people, police said.

AFP - Rolls-Royce said Thursday its net profit fell by 3.9 percent to 294 million pounds during the first six months of 2008.

AP - A member of a U.S.-allied Sunni group in Iraq says three of its guards have been killed and another wounded in drive-by shootings in northern Baghdad.

AP - Hurricane Dolly toppled trees and sent billboards flying Wednesday in the Mexican city of Matamoros, and authorities south of the U.S. border warned of possible flooding.

AFP - The UN Security Council has "good reasons" to be unsure about sending large numbers of peacekeepers to Sudan's Darfur region, its outgoing head of peacekeeping said in an interview published Thursday.

AFP - India's government said Thursday it was sending out envoys to lobby for the final global clearances needed to finalise a controversial nuclear deal with the United States.

AP - An Australian TV journalist has been released on bail on drug charges in Singapore, his employer reported Tuesday.