AP - A Spanish airliner bound for the Canary Islands at the height of the vacation season crashed, burned and broke into pieces Wednesday while trying to take off from Madrid, killing 149 people on board, officials said.

AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal Wednesday to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite.

AP - Russia is countering a French push for immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia by circulating a competing U.N. Security Council resolution.

AP - Sudan's indicted president denied Wednesday that his regime is orchestrating genocide in the troubled western region of Darfur — and offered hope for an end to the violence and the dawn of reconciliation by promising free and fair elections next year.

AFP - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, named as a possible war crimes suspect in Darfur, said here Wednesday that no citizen of his country would ever be handed over to international justice.

AP - Missiles destroyed a suspected militant hide-out near the Afghan border Wednesday where foreign insurgents were known to frequent, killing at least five people, Pakistani officials said.

AP - Ousted from Pakistan's presidency, Pervez Musharraf has been unwinding with friends and admirers and on the tennis court. He's building a roomy farmhouse on the edge of the capital.

AP - Two elderly Chinese women who applied during the Olympic Games to protest the loss of their homes have been ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday, as more foreign activists were detained.

AP - Russian forces on Wednesday built a sentry post just 30 miles from the Georgian capital, appearing to dig in to positions deep inside Georgia despite pledges to pull back to areas mandated by a cease-fire signed by both countries.