TENS of thousands of Iraqis rallied in central Baghdad on Friday against a proposed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Washington that would legitimise the US occupation of their country for three more years.
NICARAGUAN election officials confirmed on Thursday that the ruling socialist Sandinista National Liberation Front had won a landslide victory in this month's local elections.
A US civilian court ordered Washington to release five Algerian men who have been held at Guantanamo Bay for seven years on Thursday, in a blow to the Bush administration's practice of seizing and holding terror suspects without charge.
SOMALI soldiers and Islamist guerillas engaged in one of the fiercest gun battles in Mogadishu in recent weeks on Friday, killing at least 17 people and wounding six.
ARGENTINA'S Senate approved the nationalisation of $23 billion (£15bn) in private pension funds on Thursday to protect retirement savings as financial markets plunge.
IRISH democrats demonstrated outside the Swedish embassy in Dublin on Thursday after Swedish MPs sought to reanimate an EU treaty that was killed off by Irish voters in a June referendum.
SOME 400,000 Chilean workers ended a four-day strike on Thursday after legislators unanimously approved a 10 per cent wage boost for public-sector employees.
THE European Union competition chief urged Germany and France on Friday not to veer from Brussel's neoliberal path by entering a "subsidy race" to save jobs in the car industry.
THE UN security council unanimously agreed to boost the 17,000-strong peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo by a further 3,100 troops on Thursday.
GREEK prisoners who had been on hunger strike for 18 days in protest at overcrowding started accepting food on Friday after the government agreed to release thousands of inmates.