AFP - Four people were killed and several houses were destroyed after an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck southwest China on Saturday, state media reported.

AP - Gustav swelled to a fearsome Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph as it shrieked toward the heartland of Cuba's cigar industry Saturday on a track to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast three years after Hurricane Katrina.

AFP - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's party has rejected new demands by the opposition following meetings with South African mediators to get power-sharing talks back on track, state media said Saturday.

Reuters - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi arrived in Libya on Saturday to sign a "friendship pact" under which Italy will pay billions of dollars in compensation for abuses committed during its colonial rule of the North African country.

AP - The government offices in Iraq's Diyala province are encased in thick blast walls, a shield against suicide bombings. Nearby buildings are pockmarked from fighting between U.S. troops and Sunni insurgents.

AFP - Australian police have cleared an Indian doctor of involvement in failed bomb attacks in Britain last year after a bungled 14-month probe that is now the subject of a judicial inquiry.

AP - A rescue boat filled with panicked flood victims capsized and killed 20 people in northern India, where monsoon flooding grew worse because of heavy rain and water flowing from neighboring Nepal, officials said Saturday.