SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Navy is transferring the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison to a command post in Southern California.Read more

MILAN — Italian prosecutors have demanded a five-year prison sentence for former Premier Silvio Berlusconi in his trial on corruption charges.Read more

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia's president is asking the United Nations to lift the arms embargo against his country, saying the recent merger between al-Qaida and al-Shabab has made the dropping of the arms ban necessary.Read more

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania's top court has recognized Prince Paul Hohenzollern as the legitimate grandson of former King Carol II, ending a 21-year-legal battle.Read more

BAGHDAD — Officials say gunmen wearing military uniforms have killed the wife and two children of an Iraqi policeman in an attack on his home south of Baghdad.Read more

NAIROBI, Kenya — A new report says that despite advances against hunger around the world, chronic childhood malnutrition remains largely overlooked and almost a half billion children are at risk of permanent damage over the next 15 years.Read more

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan police fired on fishermen protesting a fuel price increase Wednesday, killing one person and wounding four, a witness and a doctor said.Read more

DAKAR, Senegal — Senegal's minister of the interior has refused to authorize an anti-government demonstration.Read more

PYONGYANG, North Korea — Senior North Korean officials are pledging loyalty to new leader Kim Jong Un ahead of what would have been his late father Kim Jong Il's 70th birthday.Read more

TOKYO — Japan's nuclear safety chief says the country's regulations are flawed, outdated and below global standards and he is apologizing for their failure to provide better protection.Read more

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Trapped inmates screamed from their cells as a fire swept through a Honduran prison, killing at least 272 inmates, authorities said Wednesday.Read more

WASSENAAR, Netherlands — Russia's foreign minister says he will meet his French counterpart in Vienna on Thursday and discuss a plan to rework a U.N. Security Council resolution that aims to end violence in Syria.Read more

NEW DELHI — Ambulance sirens screamed, firefighters rescued pretend victims and children dove under school desks for cover during a citywide disaster drill Wednesday in India's congested, quake-vulnerable capital of 16.7 million people.Read more

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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran says it has begun loading domestically made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran research reactor, a defiant move in response to toughening Western sanctions.Read more

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy has opened a personal Twitter account as France buzzes with speculation that he plans at last to announce his long-expected candidacy for re-election.Read more

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S.-led military coalition said Wednesday that it regrets the killing of eight civilians in a NATO airstrike this month in eastern Afghanistan.Read more

BANGKOK — Oil rose above $101 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as escalating tensions in the Middle East outweighed lingering concerns about Greece's ability to implement austerity measures to resolve its debt crisis.Read more

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ISTANBUL — Turkey condemns what it calls atrocities in Syria and says the world cannot watch another Sarajevo, the Bosnian city that endured years of siege warfare and international dithering in the 1990s. Yet it is steering clear, for now, of proposals for a "safe haven" across the border where civilians could shelter and army defectors regroup.Read more

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine troops have arrested an alleged Abu Sayyaf militant suspected of involvement in numerous kidnappings, including those of American and European tourists, police said Wednesday.Read more

TOKYO — Four days before a tsunami devastated a Japanese nuclear plant, its operator promised a fuller assessment of the risk of such a disaster - but not for seven months.Read more

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