Cuba
HAVANA - Cuban authorities Saturday banned the popular Cuban salsa group Charanga Habanera from performing at home and abroad for six months because of the band's behavior during a performance 10 days ago.
Sierra Leone
FREETOWN - Sierra Leone's military junta is anxious to reopen peace talks with its West African neighbors, but security concerns halted a plan to hold talks at a Guinean border town, sources close to the junta said Saturday.
Tajikistan
DUSHANBE - Fighting erupted Saturday between two rival armed bands in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, and residents fled the smoke-filled streets, witnesses said.
Russia
MOSCOW - A German businessman has been abducted near Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, the latest victim of a string of kidnappings there, Russia's NTV said Saturday.
Brazil
SAO PAULO - Brazilian police said Saturday they were looking for a man dressed as a monk who shot to death the may-or of the small northeastern town of Lusialandia while he was eating at a steakhouse.
Pakistan
LAHORE - Gunmen killed at least 15 people, most of them Shiite Muslims, in Pakistan's central province of Punjab Saturday in a continuing wave of religious violence, police and witnesses said.
Comoros Islands
MORONI - Comoran troops landed on the island of Anjouan early Saturday in an attempt to quell secessionist protests on the Indian Ocean island, witnesses said.
Great Britain
LONDON - Greenpeace activists chained themselves to a mobile oil platform Saturday to try to prevent British Petroleum Co. from starting production at a new oil field.
Slovakia
BRATISLAVA - Four people were killed and one was seriously injured Saturday in an explosion believed to be caused by a hand grenade in the central Slovak town of Banska Bystrica, police said.
Sri Lanka
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka has appointed new ambassadors to United States and China, the foreign ministry said Friday.
South Africa
DURBAN - A Zulu-based group said Friday it is withdrawing from peace talks in a restive province to protest what it says is bias by the government panel investigating apartheid-era abuses.
Argentina
BUENOS AIRES - The government will offer no special protection for retired officers linked to brutal government repression in the 1970s and early 1980s, the interior minister said Friday.
Chile
SANTIAGO - The Supreme Court ordered a judge Friday to investigate claims that a secretive German colony in Chile was used as a torture and execution center under the former dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
China
BEIJING - Two proteges of a Beijing mayor who was ousted because of corruption in his administration have been sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for accepting bribes, official news reports said Friday.
Sudan
KHARTOUM - A government-allied militia leader says his forces killed 5,000 rebels in recent fighting in southern Sudan - a claim the rebels dismiss as "wishful thinking."