AFP - More than six in ten Japanese want Prime Minister Naoto Kan to win his party leadership battle with powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa, polls showed Monday.

AP - Army troops took control of the center of the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Monday, two days after a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake smashed buildings and homes, wrecked roads and rail lines — but caused no loss of life.

AP - A third man survived last month's massacre of 72 migrants by suspected drug traffickers in Mexico and is now in the United States, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said Sunday.

AFP - Germany will extend the life of its 17 nuclear reactors by 12 years on average, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced Monday after marathon talks on the controversial issue.

AP - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud.

AP - Two boats capsized over the weekend in separate incidents on Congo's vast rivers, leaving 70 people dead and 200 others feared dead, and both vessels were heavily loaded and operating with few safety measures, officials said Sunday.

AP - A suicide car-bomber killed three soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a military base in Russia's violence-plagued republic of Dagestan on Sunday, officials said.

AP - While a fire warms their campsite, the icy feeling between Cristina Nunez Macias and her mother-in-law is as palpable as the cold Atacama desert.

AFP - More than a dozen vehicles including three fuel tankers and two mini-buses caught fire Sunday in a pile-up on a Nigerian highway, site of a deadly multi-car crash three weeks ago, an AFP photographer reported.

AP - Iran's president said Sunday that any Israeli attack against his nation would mean the destruction of the Jewish state.

AP - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

Reuters - The U.S. economy appears to be trudging along, neither booming nor busting, growing steadily enough to diminish double-dip recession fears but not quickly enough to bring down unemployment.

AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

Reuters - The U.S. government is likely to take a loss on General Motors Co in the first offering of the automaker's stock, six people familiar with preparations for the landmark IPO said.

AFP - Japan's top minicar maker Suzuki Motor Corp. is to build a new auto assembly plant near the Indian capital New Delhi in a bid to meet growing demand in the country, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Reuters - The world economy is recovering moderately but still faces challenges such as the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation, the IMF's First Managing Director, John Lipsky, said on Sunday.

AFP - European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet called Saturday for Europe to hold a united position on refomin the International Monetary Fund.

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

AP - Summer is rarely a hot sales season for Campbell Soup Co., and this year's sweltering June and July made that even more true, but the company said Friday that cost-cutting and strong drink sales helped its net income climb.

Reuters - U.S. regulators probing the May flash crash are focusing on a trading practice known as "quote stuffing", in which large numbers of rapid-fire orders to buy or sell stocks are placed and canceled almost immediately.