Liechtenstein's royal family has indicated it would veto the results of any referendum that removed the prince's power to veto the results of referendums. Pro-democracy campaigners in the tiny Alpine principality announced this week that they will seek signatures for a referendum on whether to remove the power of veto.

A Singapore court has ruled four people can be extradited to the U.S. to face conspiracy charges related to the smuggling of radio control devices to Iran, including 16 items found in improvised explosive devices in Iraq. The court said Friday the four Singaporean citizens have 15 days to appeal the ruling.

Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda has won the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award for the New York Times with an image of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen. Jurors said Friday the photo captured multiple facets of the "Arab Spring" uprisings across the Middle East last year.

New York Times photographer wins top World Press Photo prize for image from Yemeni protest ___ February 10, 2012 05:06 AM EST Copyright 2012, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda has won the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award for the New York Times with an image of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen. Jurors said Friday the photo captured multiple facets of the "Arab Spring" uprisings across the Middle East last year.

Two Afghan officials say Pakistan has arrested two people in connection with last year's assassination of a former Afghan president who was trying to broker peace with the Taliban. The officials told The Associated Press in Kabul the two were recently detained in the Pakistani city of Quetta, the alleged base of the Taliban insurgency.

A Chinese court has sentenced a dissident writer to seven years in prison over a poem he wrote urging his countrymen to gather to a public square, a human rights group said Friday. The hefty sentence comes ahead of next week's visit to the U.

The embattled youth leader of South Africa's governing party says he's preparing for life outside the African National Congress if his five-year suspension is upheld. An ANC disciplinary committee found Julius Malema guilty of serious discipline violations, and he has been given a chance to argue against a possibly career-ending suspension from the party.

Beijing says a celebrity police chief linked to one of the country's rising political stars spent a day in a U.S. consulate in southwestern China amid speculation that he sought political asylum. The U.S. State Department confirmed that former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun visited the consulate in the city of Chengdu, but gave no details.

Turkey's state-run television says a woman was killed when a bomb she was carrying went off in Istanbul. TRT television says police found the woman's body on a street ub Istanbul's Sancaktepe neighborhood late on Thursday, shortly after residents reported an explosion.

Not content with legislative approval of a big pay raise, Rio state police officers went on strike Friday, raising fears for the security of the glittering Carnival extravaganza that sets this seaside city throbbing. The work stoppage will force authorities to deploy thousands of soldiers into the streets to provide security in this city of 6 million people that is also in the midst of preparations to host the 2014 World Cup finals and the 2016 Olympics.

A candidate who claimed victory in the presidential election in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia has been hospitalized in grave condition after a police raid on her headquarters, officials said Friday. Former Education Minister Alla Dzhioyeva, suffered a surge in blood pressure, the local government and her staff both said, after riot police raided her headquarters in the provincial capital, Tskhinvali, and attempted to take her out for questioning.

A German court is set to deliver its verdict in the trial of an alleged Islamic extremist who has admitted killing two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport last year. The Frankfurt state court is to rule Friday in the case of the 21-year-old Arid Uka, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, who has confessed to killing the two men at point-blank range before wounding two more airmen and taking aim at a third before his gun misfired.

Two explosions targeted security compounds in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday, state media said, causing an unspecified number of casualties in a major city seen as key to President Bashar Assad's grip on power. A weeping television presenter on state-run TV showed graphic footage of at least five corpses, saying the blasts went off near a public garden where children had been playing.

Swiss police appealed for witnesses Friday after a car hit a group of people standing outside a Zurich bar, killing one person and injuring five others. Swiss media cited eyewitnesses saying the driver appeared to have intentionally steered his vehicle into the group after a verbal altercation with the owner of the bar in Zurich's Langstrasse, a popular nightlife area in Switzerland's biggest city.

A Guinean government official says a high-ranking military commander has been charged in connection with a massacre at a soccer stadium more than two years ago. Col. Moussa Tiegboro Camara has been indicted on charges connected to the September 2009 shootings, according to Justice Ministry spokesman Ibrahima Beavogui.

In the run-up to this city's huge Carnival, the cash register at the souvenir shop where Vania Alves works is normally buzzing as hoards of revelers scoop up rubber thong sandals, teeny bikinis and sarongs printed with the Brazilian flag.

Pakistan's top court rejected Friday a last-ditch appeal filed by the prime minister against a looming contempt charge, paving the way for a case that could plunge the nuclear-armed country into political turmoil. The Supreme Court is demanding that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reopen corruption proceedings against President Asif Ali Zardari.

The push by Afghanistan's president to nationalize legions of private security guards before the end of March is encouraging corruption and jeopardizing multibillion-dollar aid projects, according to companies trying to make the switch.

Oil prices fell to near $99 a barrel Friday in Asia as encouraging news about the U.S. economy was tempered by European demands for Greece to make further spending cuts before getting a new bailout. Benchmark crude for March delivery was down 61 cents at $99.

Eight South Korean lawmakers made a high-profile visit Friday to a modern factory park that sits just across the world's most heavily armed border and represents the last major cooperative initiative between the two rival Koreas. The 123 South Korean companies operating at the jointly run industrial park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong are producing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products and adding workers despite political animosity that keeps the two governments from formally speaking to each other.

Turkey and Iran, regional heavyweights and heirs to imperial pasts, expanded trade in the past decade and papered over their traditional rivalry with diplomacy and rhetoric. Now these neighbors have staked out opposing positions in Syria, where outside players seek to sway an outcome to the bloodshed that could, in turn, alter power balances in the Middle East.

When local police arrived in riot gear to evict the Vuon clan, family members were ready with homemade land mines and improvised shotguns. In a guerrilla-style ambush reminiscent of a Vietnam War battle, they wounded six officers. But instead of drawing public condemnation, last month's rare violence by fish farmers trying to hold onto leased land in the northern port city of Hai Phong has made a national hero of family ringleader Doan Van Vuon and ripped open a debate about heavy-handed seizures by local governments.

A top U.N. official was meeting Friday with the current and former presidents of the Maldives, trying to end the political stalemate that has gripped this Indian Ocean nation. Turmoil in the Maldives escalated sharply Tuesday when President Mohamed Nasheed announced he was resigning after months of protests against his rule and fading support from the police and the army.

Syria's state-run TV reports two explosions in northern city of Aleppo, no word on casualties. ___ February 10, 2012 02:56 AM EST Copyright 2012, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.