Angola: Team attacked
LUANDA — Gunmen in an area plagued by separatist violence used machine guns to open fire Friday on a bus carrying Togo's national soccer team to a tournament in this southwest African country, killing the driver and wounding at least nine people, including two players.
Some players said they wanted to pull out of the African Cup of Nations tournament following the violence, but an official in Angola said it would go ahead as planned.
Australia: KFC drops ad
CANBERRA — Fast food giant KFC has pulled an Australian television advertisement after it was branded racist in the United States.
The ad depicts a white Australian cricket fan subduing boisterous black West Indian fans by sharing his fried chicken. The spot, which foreshadows a much-anticipated clash between the two fiercely competitive cricketing nations, ran for three weeks without raising a ripple of complaint in Australia.
But when the ad spread via the Internet to the United States, some complained it played on a derogatory stereotype of black Americans.
Canada: Bombings arrest
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Police arrested a man Friday in connection with a series of oil and gas pipeline bombings in northeastern British Columbia.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Tim Shields said a man in his 50s or 60s was taken into custody in western Alberta. Police did not release the suspect's name pending the filing of formal charges.
There have been six bombings of EnCana pipelines in British Columbia since October 2008. No one was injured in the attacks which caused only minor disruptions to pipeline operations.
England: Threats on plane
LONDON — British police arrested three people aboard an Emirates passenger jet at London's Heathrow Airport Friday. Witnesses said police were called after the three suspects made verbal threats as the plane was taxiing.
A police spokesman said the three — all believed to be male — were removed from the jet, which was preparing to fly to Dubai. The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with policy, said officers were searching the plane but had found no hazardous material.
Iraq: Sunni leader barred
BAGHDAD — Hopes of persuading Iraq's minority Sunnis to take part in the March election were dealt a blow Friday after a prominent Sunni politician said he'd been barred from the polls because of alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's regime.
Legislator Saleh al-Mutlaq said he planned to appeal the decision by a committee to bar him and warned its ruling would stoke sectarian tensions ahead of the Mar. 7 vote.
Malaysia: Religious anger
KUALA LUMPUR — Religious tensions in Muslim-majority Malaysia turned violent Friday with firebomb attacks on three churches following a court decision that allows Christians to translate God as Allah.
"Allah is only for us," said a poster waved at one of at least two protests outside mosques in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, the Muslim holy day.
Many Muslims are angry about a Dec. 31 High Court decision overturning a government ban on Roman Catholics' using "Allah" for God in the Malay-language edition of their main newspaper, the Herald.
Venezuela: Devaluation
CARACAS — President Hugo Chavez announced a currency devaluation Friday for the first time since 2005, setting a two-tiered exchange rate designed to help Venezuela's oil earnings go farther domestically while holding down prices of priority imports like food to counter soaring inflation.
Chavez said the bolivar will now have two government-set rates: 2.60 to the dollar for transactions deemed priorities by the government, and 4.30 to the dollar for other transactions. The devaluation dropped the currency's value by 17 percent or 50 percent, depending on the tier.
Chavez said the priority exchange rate will apply to items including food, health care products and school supplies.