AFP - The death toll from rain-triggered landslides that struck a remote village in southwestern China has risen to 15, with another 33 people missing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

AP - Explosions ripped through a building Friday in southern Lebanon that might have been used to store weapons by the militant group Hezbollah, security officials said.

AFP - A Portuguese court sentenced six out of seven defendants to jail terms of between five and 18 years for a string of sexual offences against children in a state-run care home.

AP - North Korea is preparing its largest political meeting in 30 years, and leader Kim Jong Il is expected to appoint a son to a key Workers Party position in what would be the strongest sign yet of a succession movement in the secretive communist country.

AP - Is the global economy out of the woods? Two years after near-meltdown, with the U.S. looking sluggish, equity markets groggy and Europeans fighting a debt crisis, experts gathered in Italy offered a generally gloomy outlook — especially for the United States and much of the industrialized world.

AP - Is the global economy out of the woods? Two years after near-meltdown, with the U.S. looking sluggish, equity markets groggy and Europeans fighting a debt crisis, experts gathered in Italy offered a generally gloomy outlook — especially for the United States and much of the industrialized world.

AP - A vessel has latched onto a key piece of evidence in the oil spill investigation so crews can raise the 300-ton device to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

AP - Pakistani officials say the second suspected U.S. missile strike of the day has killed two people in the country's restive tribal region.

AP - Hurricane Earl sideswiped North Carolina's Outer Banks early Friday, flooding the vacation islands but causing no injuries and little damage, then chugged up the Eastern Seaboard toward Cape Cod, a weaker but still dangerous storm.

AP - Mozambique's economy has lost more than $3 million because of deadly riots over the rising prices of food and other goods, the government said Friday, as state media reported new protests in two other towns.

AFP - World tourism rebounded strongly this year from the global financial crisis, led by Asia and the Middle East, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said Friday.

AP - President Barack Obama welcomed news Friday of better-than-expected private sector job growth. But with the unemployment rate ticking upward nevertheless, he said he'd roll out new plans next week to spur the economy.

AP - Whether or not she emerges as winner following recent elections, Australia's first woman prime minister will have led the nation's oldest political party to one of the lowest points in its 119-year history.

Reuters - U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but the drop was far less than expected and private hiring surprised on the upside, easing pressure on the Federal Reserve to prop up economic growth.

AFP - US President Barack Obama said better-than-expected jobs data released Friday was positive, but said it was not good enough as the economy struggles out of the deepest slump in decades.

AP - A scientist has been detained at the Miami International Airport after screeners spotted a metal canister in his luggage that looked like a pipe bomb, prompting an evacuation, a government official said.

AP - Fidel Castro dusted off his full military uniform for the first time since stepping down as president four years ago, a symbolic act in a communist country where little signals often carry enormous significance.

Reuters - President Barack Obama on Friday said he would address a package of new measures next week to boost U.S. growth and hiring as he greeted the August job report as positive news.

Reuters - Wall Street advanced on Friday after a better-than-expected jobs report lifted investor optimism on the economy but gains were checked after data showed services sector activity slowed.

Reuters - Campbell Soup Co posted lower-than-expected quarterly sales and forecast sales growth for the new fiscal year below its long-term target as the world's largest soup company grapples with a weak economy.

Time.com - Nine weeks before the midterm elections, Barack Obama finds himself on the wrong side of the polls. Where did all that adoration go -- and is a Republican sweep next?

AP - Unlike the blast that led to the massive BP spill, the latest oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico killed no one and sent no crude gushing into the water.

AFP - Brazil's Petrobras unveiled one of the world's biggest share offerings on Friday, a sale of up to 64 billion dollars in new stock to finance oil exploration aimed at turning Brazil into one of the world's top 21st century oil exporters.

AP - Seven people were convicted of child sex abuse in Portugal on Friday in a major trial that lasted nearly six years, a prosecutor said.

AFP - The future of Germany's Karstadt, Europe's third-largest department store chain, appeared to be secured Friday as a court approved its acquisition by a billionaire investor, safeguarding 25,000 jobs.

AP - When Ruth Garcia's twins are born in two months, they'll have all the rights of U.S. citizens. They and their six brothers and sisters will be able to vote, apply for federal student loans and even run for president.

AP - Pro-government militiamen attacked the home of an Iranian opposition leader with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, an opposition website reported, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally on Friday.

AP - A Turkish Cypriot businessman who voluntarily returned to Britain after 17 years to face fraud charges learned Friday that he will have to wait more than a year for the trial he insists will vindicate him.

AP - U.S. Agriculture Department employees worked full-time at two Iowa egg farms at the center of a salmonella outbreak and massive recall, but two former workers said they ignored complaints about conditions at one site.