Reuters - The Afghan government would quickly be overthrown if NATO troops pulled out of the country now, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Friday.

AFP - A gas explosion at a mine in northeast China early Saturday killed 15 workers and left 114 trapped, state-run China Central Television (CCTV) said.

AP - An explosion struck the office of an aid organization in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border on Saturday, wounding a security guard, police said.

AFP - Loosehead prop Wian du Preez will make his South Africa debut against Italy here on Saturday with Leicester Tiger Martin Castrogiovanni's snarling teeth ready to welcome him.

AP - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday.

AP - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery.

AP - The husband of an acclaimed dissident Cuban blogger was punched and shouted down by a pro-government mob Friday after he challenged the presumed state agents who earlier roughed up his wife to a street corner debate.

AP - Egyptian soccer fans burned Algerian flags and rioted outside the Algerian Embassy in Cairo, smashing cars and shop windows, in an escalating row between the two countries over a bitter World Cup rivalry.

AFP - Australia said it was "deeply disappointed" after a fleet of Japanese whaling ships set out to kill hundreds of the giant ocean mammals on their annual hunt.

AP - The visiting German defense chief says Germany will hold off on any decision about adding troops to Afghanistan at least until the United States makes a move.

AP - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Friday for all countries to fix binding climate change targets next year at the latest, acknowledging that no such deal is likely at global talks in Copenhagen next month.

AP - Eating disorder experts criticized Kate Moss on Thursday after the supermodel cited a phrase used on pro-anorexia Web sites as her motto.

AP - President Hamid Karzai was inaugurated Thursday for a second term, pledging that Afghanistan will prosecute corrupt officials and control its own security within five years.