China
BEIJING — A moderate earthquake hit a remote swath of northwestern China on Thursday, shaking the same province as two deadly tremors last month. Eight people were injured, but nobody was reported killed in the thinly populated area. The epicenter of the 5.2-magnitude quake was in Gansu province, 780 miles west of here.
France
PARIS — French actress Catherine Deneuve has quit her job as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador to protest Angola's nomination of a scandal-marred businessman to the cultural agency, a spokeswoman said Thursday. Deneuve, who starred in the 1967 erotic classic "Belle de Jour," resigned Wednesday to protest the African country's naming of French businessman Pierre Falcone as its UNESCO envoy.
Germany
BERLIN — Construction of Germany's national Holocaust memorial will resume with the participation of a company that co-owned the maker of Nazi poison gas used to exterminate millions of Jews, Germany's parliament president announced Thursday. Work on the 15-year-old Berlin project was stopped last month after complaints that an anti-graffiti coating being used was made by Degussa AG.
BERLIN — Germany's supreme court said Thursday it has approved the extradition of two Yemenis to the United States, where they are wanted on charges of supporting al-Qaida. Ali Hassan al-Moayad and his alleged assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, were arrested in a Frankfurt hotel in January. The final decision on extradition lies with the German government.
Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Hundreds of government opponents protested in Haiti's capital Thursday, calling for the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide because of deepening poverty and insecurity in the Caribbean country. The crowd of university students and opposition activists marched to the National Palace, where some 50 Aristide supporters confronted them, yelling, "If Aristide isn't there, who will replace him?"
Italy
ROME — About 1,000 Carabinieri police swept through small towns in Italy's southern Calabria region early Thursday, arresting dozens of people, including suspected mobsters and former local officials, with alleged mafia ties. The raid focused on several clans of the 'ndrangheta, Calabria's organized crime syndicate.
Ivory Coast
ABIDJAN — The European Union will withhold $469 million in aid promised for Ivory Coast's rebuilding until combatants in the civil war comply with a stalled peace accord, the EU Commission president warned Thursday.
Japan
TOKYO — A 114-year-old Japanese woman who just weeks ago assumed the title of the world's oldest person died Thursday, a Hiroshima official said. Mitoyo Kawate, who was born May 15, 1889, died of pneumonia, said Hiroshima city spokesman Masatoshi Yamada. The oldest person is now Charlotte Benkner, of North Lima, Ohio, born Nov. 16, 1889, Guinness World Records said.
Mexico
MEXICO CITY — A former Mexican consul to Lebanon has been arrested on charges of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico, federal agents said Thursday. Imelda Ortiz is the fourth alleged member of the ring captured in three days.
Peru
LIMA — A secret military court has dismissed charges against 140 commandos accused of summarily executing three leftist rebels during a 1997 hostage rescue at the Japanese ambassador's residence, a lawyer for one of the defendants said Thursday. The military tribunal ruled there was not enough evidence, said Mario Amoretti, a lawyer for Jaime Patino, a general who led the raid.
Switzerland
GENEVA — The number of diabetes cases in developing countries could double over the next 30 years because of increasingly unhealthy diets and less exercise, the World Health Organization said Friday.
Turkey
ANKARA — A fire tore through a cafe Thursday in the Aegean port city of Izmir, killing nine people, an official said. Izmir Gov. Yusuf Ziya Goksu said an electrical fault was the most likely cause of the fire in the "Name Cafe" in the residential district of Bornova.