There is a "real possibility" that the Beijing Olympics will be attacked by terrorists, the head of global police body Interpol has warned, reports BBC Speaking in Beijing, Ronald Noble said the Games could give "easy cover" to groups such as al-Qaeda.

He also warned that protesters who have disrupted the Olympic torch relay might also target this summer''s Games. China claims to have foiled several plots to attack the Olympics by Muslim separatists from Xinjiang province.

REUTERS, WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to award detained Myanmar democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi the Congressional Gold Medal, America's top civilian honor.

The House of Representatives overwhelming approved companion legislation on Dec. 17 to confer the honor on Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

AFP, NEW DELHI - The Dalai Lama on Friday welcomed China's offer to meet his envoy for talks after weeks of protests over Tibet and his spokesman repeated calls from the exiled spiritual leader for dialogue with Beijing.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported that

REUTERS, PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistan is close to clinching a peace pact with one of the most recalcitrant tribes in its lawless border regions to rein in a Taliban leader regarded as a cohort of al Qaeda.

Baitullah Mehsud hails from the Shahbikhel, a sub-tribe of the Mehsud, who with the Wazir represent the main tribes in Waziristan, the tribal region furthest from Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

AFP, HARARE - Police on Friday raided the offices of Zimbabwe's main independent election observation group in the capital Harare, a source at the Zimbabwe Election Support Network said.

"Police are searching our offices, they are flipping through files and documents but they have not taken anything," said the source, who requested anonymity.

REUTERS, COLOMBO - A Sri Lankan state-backed former Tamil Tiger rebel group, accused of abductions and killings, has freed 28 child soldiers, UNICEF said on Friday, welcoming the second major release in two weeks.

The TMVP, made up of fighters who defected from the mainstream Tamil Tigers in 2004 and helped the government evict their former comrades from the island's east, released 11 children in early April.

AFP, WASHINGTON - Human beings for 100,000 years lived in tiny, separate groups, facing harsh conditions that brought them to the brink of extinction, before they reunited and populated the world, genetic researchers have said.

"Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction," said paleontologist Meave Leakey, of Stony Brook University, New York.

REUTERS, PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pro-Taliban militants exploded a car bomb outside a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least three people, police and a militant spokesman said.

"The car was parked outside the police station. It was packed with explosives and blew up, damaging the station and several nearby shops in the bazaar," senior officer Tahir Khan in the town of Mardan, where the attack took place, told Reuters.

REUTERS, KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist former rebels won 220 seats in the 601-member special assembly, making them the single largest party, the Election Commission said on Friday.

The election crowns a 2006 peace deal ending a 10-year-long Maoist insurgency that killed some 13,000 people in one of the world's poorest countries.

AP News

Three detectives were found not guilty Friday morning on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens.

Justice Arthur J. Cooperman, who delivered the verdict, said many of the prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr. Bell’s friends and the two wounded victims, were simply not believable.

AFP, GAZA CITY - The United Nations warned that aid distribution would end in the Gaza Strip on Thursday unless Israel allows new fuel supplies, but Israel blamed Hamas for the shortages.

"We are hours away from shutting down our operation, said John Ging, who heads the UN Relief and Works Agency office in Gaza. "We didn't receive fuel," he told AFP.

REUTERS, KATHMANDU - Counting of votes in Nepal's key election is expected to end on Thursday, a contest likely to cement the former Maoist rebels as the largest party and give them a chance to lead a minority government.

The election, the centrepiece of a 2006 peace pact which ended a decade-long insurgency, is for a special assembly that will write a new constitution, abolish Nepal's 240-year-old monarchy and make laws.

REUTERS, PESHAWAR, Pakistan - An al Qaeda-linked militant commander has ordered his followers to stop attacks in Pakistan after the new government began peace talks, a government official said on Thursday.

Pakistan's new government that emerged from a February general election has promised to pursue negotiations in a bid to end a tide of militant violence in which hundreds of people have been killed since the middle of last year.

REUTERS, COLOMBO - Sri Lankan planes bombed rebel positions on Thursday, a day after dozens of Tamil Tiger fighters and government troops were killed in one of the bloodiest battles in 25 years of civil war.

The army said it killed over 100 rebels in fighting around the northern Jaffna Peninsula on Wednesday, but also admitted 43 government troops were killed and 33 missing in action.

REUTERS, BEIJING - Chinese authorities will harshly deal with anyone who spreads rumours which "excite popular feelings" or disturb social harmony in the already restive region of Tibet, the government said on Thursday.

The notice, coming just months before the Beijing Olympics, seems to be aimed at Tibetans who listen to foreign radio broadcasts about the recent demonstrations in their remote mountainous region, skirt China's firewall to access overseas websites or simply exchange news with friends.

AFP, WASHINGTON - Democrats braced for weeks more of bitter fighting Wednesday after Hillary Clinton scored a solid win over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's presidential primary, keeping her fragile White House hopes alive.

The former first lady claimed a groundswell of new support, with three million dollars in fresh campaign cash

AFP, HARARE - A unity government led by President Robert Mugabe may be the best way to break Zimbabwe's post-election deadlock, state media said Wednesday, as the first result from a recount of votes was declared.

While Mugabe's ZANU-PF party triumphed in the first of 23 constituencies holding a recount from the March 29 polls, the state-run Herald newspaper said it was clear no side would win a majority in the presidential election and the best way forward therefore was to form a government of national unity.