World - AP

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - Britain called for consideration of a global tax on financial transactions to insure against another crisis and urged world finance officials meeting Saturday in Scotland to agree on bearing the cost of fighting climate change.

TEHRAN, Iran - Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected on Saturday any possibility of Tehran shipping uranium abroad for further enrichment, intensifying pressures on the government to reject the U.N.-backed plan altogether.

KABUL - Pushing back against international criticism, Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the top U.N. official in the country overstepped his authority by giving instructions on how to rid the government of corruption and warlords.

KARACHI, Pakistan - Some women strode the catwalk in vicious spiked bracelets and body armor. Others had their heads covered, burqa-style, but with shoulders — and tattoos — exposed. Male models wore long, Islamic robes as well as shorts and sequined T-shirts.

TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexican police caught a prison official who spent a year on the run from charges of killing a 19-year-old inmate, whose beating death sparked riots that left nearly two dozen dead, including two American prisoners.

DANANG, Vietnam - On the day his side lost the Vietnam War, Hung Ba Le fled his homeland at the age of 5 in a fishing trawler crammed with 400 refugees. Thirty-four years later, he made an unlikely homecoming — as the commander of a U.S. Navy destroyer.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani soldiers killed 12 militants in gunbattles over the past day, officials said Saturday, as government forces pressed on with their offensive in the mountainous Taliban sanctuary of South Waziristan.

BEIJING - A Chinese scholar persecuted during the Cultural Revolution for smuggling a rare collection of mushrooms out of China before World War II was honored Saturday when the collection was returned more than 70 years later.

LONDON - A British auction house says it's selling a strand of Elvis Presley's hair preserved for decades by a fan.

BEIRUT - Lebanon's Syrian-backed factions finally agreed on a unity government proposed by their pro-Western rivals on Saturday, ending a four-month deadlock in the deeply divided country.

MANILA, Philippines - President Barack Obama will meet leaders of Southeast Asian nations, including Myanmar, in a high-level affirmation of Washington's new policy of engaging the military-ruled country despite its dismal human rights record.

FILAS DE MARICHES, Venezuela - While a drought has put Caracas under widespread water rationing for the first time in years, for Venezuelans in this hillside slum it's just more of the same.

BRUSSELS - A top Pentagon official says President Barack Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan will be certain to include reinforcements of foreign troops from both the United States and allied nations.

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council joined calls Friday on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to fight corruption, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling the country's political situation "delicate" following deeply flawed elections.

BEIJING - China is offering to abolish import duties on some commodities from Africa and make sure Chinese exports to the continent are safe as part of a package to boost already thriving economic ties, China's commerce minister said in an article published Saturday.

JERUSALEM - Neither strategy has yielded a Palestinian state, and Israeli settlements still encroach on lands that would make up their would-be nation.

BANGKOK - Thailand's fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has spent much of the past three years roaming the globe, shopping for diamonds in Africa, golfing at Asian resorts — and humiliating the government from a distance.

HAVANA - A Cuban blogger who has gained international attention for her searing commentary about life on the communist island said she was briefly detained Friday and warned by state security agents about her opposition activity.

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - A week of torrential rain has flooded the homes of more than 200,000 people along Mexico's Gulf coast, officials said Friday. Residents in some towns complained that no help had arrived.