AP - A retired British couple snatched from their yacht by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday they fear they could be killed within a week or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom demand is not paid.

AP - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus.

AP - Catherine Ashton: International woman of mystery.

AP - Underpaid, under-equipped and under-trained, Afghanistan's 93,000-member police force is the weak link in an ambitious security strategy to hand over defense of the country to Afghans so American and other foreign troops can go home.

AP - Representatives of six world powers urged Iran on Friday to accept a U.N. plan aimed at delaying its ability to build a nuclear weapon, as the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency warned Tehran not to miss the opportunity to resolve the dispute.

Time.com - Eschewing the superstar candidacy of Tony Blair, the E.U. picks low-profile politicians as its first president and foreign minister

AP - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday.

AP - Egyptian soccer fans burned Algerian flags and rioted outside the Algerian Embassy in Cairo, smashing cars and shop windows, in an escalating row between the two countries over a bitter World Cup rivalry.

AFP - Protesters injured dozens of police near the Algerian embassy in Egypt's capital on Friday, fanning the flames of a diplomatic spat that erupted after Algeria won a football World Cup qualifier.

AFP - US Senator John McCain predicted an allied win in Afghanistan in one year to 18 months if sufficient troops are sent, as the White House mulls sending tens of thousands of reinforcements.

AFP - Australia said it was "deeply disappointed" after a fleet of Japanese whaling ships set out to kill hundreds of the giant ocean mammals on their annual hunt.