An alleged Islamic militant went on trial Wednesday on charges of harboring terrorists behind twin suicide hotel bombings in Jakarta that killed seven and injured more than 50 in Indonesia.Amir Abdillah appeared in South Jakarta District Court on charges of violating Indonesia's anti-terror law by concealing information and harboring terrorists linked with the July 17 attacks at the J.

A senior U.N. envoy pressed ahead Wednesday with international efforts to get North Korea back into nuclear disarmament talks, during the world body's first high-level visit to the reclusive state in nearly six years.In Beijing, top nuclear negotiators from North Korea and China were to meet again Wednesday, a day afterdiscussing how to restart the six-nation nuclear talks aimed at ridding Pyongyang of its atomic weapons program in return for aid, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

A rice vendor may have lived under the rubble of a flea market for 27 days with little more than water and possibly fruit, a doctor said Tuesday, in what would be a dramatic tale of survival four weeks after Haiti's devastating earthquake.

Parents of some of the children who 10 U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake told a judge Tuesday that they freely handed over their kids, the Americans' lawyer said.The parents' testimony means no law was broken and "we can't talk any more about trafficking of human beings," attorney Aviol Fleurant told reporters.

Relatives in eastern Cuba claim to have held a 125th birthday party for a woman named Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez, but it is not clear if she is really that old.The state-run news agency Prensa Latina reported on the party last weekend in the city of Bayamo in Granma province, attended by Rodriguez's family, including 15 great-grand children and four great-great-grandchildren.

President-elect Sebastian Pinera named a Cabinet of technocrats Tuesday torun his government, calling more on political independents than members of the Chilean conservative parties that made him their standard-bearer.Among the 22 ministers joining Pinera when his four-year term begins in March, 13 earned postgraduate degrees outside Chile, most at U.

A governing party candidate in Bolivia is making 1,000 adobe bricks as part of a drunk-driving sentence handed down under the community justice system backed by the country's pro-indigenous government.Felix Patzi, an Aymara Indian who was running for governor of La Paz, made 300 bricks by Tuesday afternoon.

A crackdown on a vicious Mexican drug gang has led to the arrest of five Tijuana police officers, including two who had been at the forefront of the border city's efforts to rid the force of corruption.The five officers were caught at a house along with six cartel members who were holding two rival gangsters captive, Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of the federal police, said at a news conference Tuesday.

A look at the latest developments in Haiti on Tuesday, 28 days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince:DEATH TOLLHaiti's government raises estimate on deaths caused by Jan. 12 quake to 230,000 — the same death toll as the 2004 Asian tsunami — and says the number of dead is expected to rise as more bodies are counted.

U.S. and Afghan forces pushed Tuesday to the edge of the southern Afghan town of Marjah, poised to seize the major Taliban supply and drug-smuggling stronghold in hopes of building public support by providing aid and services once the insurgents are gone.

Canadian authorities are looking into unsolved murder and sexual assault cases after charging the commander of Canada's largest Air Force base with the murder of two women and the sexual assault of two others.Col. Russell Williams was arrested Sunday and charged with the murder of two women, including a soldier who was under his command.

Legislators allied with President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday they plan to adopt rules that will punish any lawmaker who abandons the socialist leader.The announcement came after Chavez urged members of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela to pick candidates for congressional elections in September who "aren't going to jump ship" after the voting.

Fourteen-month-old Abigail Charlot survived Haiti's cataclysmic earthquake but not its miserable aftermath. Brought into the capital's General Hospital with fever and diarrhea, little Abigail literally dried up."Sometimes they arrive too late," said Dr.

Haiti's government has raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 from 212,000 and says more bodies remain uncounted.The government initially estimated 150,000 dead on Jan. 24, apparently from bodies being recovered in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince, the capital that was near the epicenter.

Haiti raises estimate of earthquake's death toll to 230,000 — on par with 2004 Asian tsunami.___February 09, 2010 05:41 PM EST Copyright 2010, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Dozens of irate clients in the U.S. Virgin Islands are scrambling to recover at least $2.5 million from a missing real estate agent who is a mother of six.The Virgin Islands Department of Justice has issued a sealed arrest warrant for Rosemary Sauter-Frett, a well-known businesswoman who was a frequent guest on a popular radio show and owned RE/MAX Dream Properties in St.

Nigeria's parliament empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to run Africa's most populous nation Tuesday in place of an ill and absent president, striving for a political end to a crisis that ground the government to a virtual halt and triggered the resumption of an insurgency in the vital oil sector.

A scandal in Italy's Catholic Church has morphed into a tale of Vatican intrigue complete with forged documents, reports of dueling cardinals and a papal admonishment Tuesday to put the matter to rest.The scandal erupted in August, when the newspaper Il Giornale reported that it had court documents showing the editor of the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference had paid to settle charges that he harassed the wife of a man he was romantically pursuing.

Iran has convicted another opposition activist on charges related to the country's post-election turmoil and sentenced him to death, the judiciary said Tuesday, bringing to at least 10 the number of those facing the death penalty for the unrest following June's disputed presidential election.

Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan says he has assumed power as acting president.___February 09, 2010 04:05 PM EST Copyright 2010, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Prominent Irish victims of Catholic sexual abuse have written to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to take responsibility for the church's concealment of child molestation by forcing out bishops implicated in the decades of cover-up.Their plea, published Tuesday, comes one week before a special Vatican summit involving the pontiff and Ireland's bishops to craft a response to mammoth abuse cover-up scandals in the Irish church.

Canada's government says it will appeal a British Columbia court ruling that sanctioned North America's first safe injection site for drug users.The Vancouver site, where people can inject illegal drugs with clean needles under a nurse's supervision, has operated since 2003 under a constitutional exemption from Canadian drug laws.

Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner was out of intensive care Tuesday after emergency surgery on an important artery feeding blood to his brain.Los Arcos hospital in Buenos Aires in a statement that the 59-year-old Kirchner was transferred to normal care and continued to recover well.

U.S. missile defense plans are a threat to Russian national security and have slowed down progress on a new arms control treaty with Washington, Russia's top military officer said Tuesday.Gen. Nikolai Makarov said that a revised U.S. plan to place missiles in Europe undermines Russia's national defense, rejecting Obama administration promises that the plan is not directed at his country.

Flooding in Uruguay has swamped roads and homes, forced thousands to evacuate and cut power and water service.Hardest-hit is the central province of Durazno, where the Yi River overflowed its banks.Durazno's emergency agency says 3,000 people were evacuated and another 1,500 left home on their own.