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BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai court sentenced the wife of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a major force in his political and business empire, to three years in jail on Thursday after finding her guilty of tax fraud.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes judge for the first time on Thursday to answer genocide charges and said he had been kidnapped and feared for his life.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The media should have been told they would not have total Internet freedom before arriving for the Beijing Olympics, a senior IOC official said on Thursday, as rights groups piled criticism on both the IOC and host China.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Gore, long mocked as an exaggerating bore, seems certain to land a lead role at the Democratic National Convention as an internationally recognized defender of the Earth.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - NATO members must send more troops to southern Afghanistan, where Canada and a few other nations are bearing the brunt of combat against Taliban militants, Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a sweeping rescue package aimed at resurrecting the housing market from its worst slump since the Great Depression and stabilizing the two largest mortgage finance companies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Libya would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate U.S. victims of terrorism under a tentative agreement that hinges on action by the U.S. Congress, sources familiar with the accord said on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday he hoped talks aimed at resolving the country's political crisis would give President Robert Mugabe an "honorable exit".

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has condemned U.S. President George W. Bush's meeting with a group of exiled Chinese dissidents, saying it "sent a seriously wrong message to anti-Chinese forces".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration broad authority to regulate cigarettes and other forms of tobacco cleared the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's right-wing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu called on Thursday for an early election to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose pledge to resign has deepened uncertainty over Middle East peacemaking.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region on Thursday in a resolution calling for redoubled efforts to end a 5-year humanitarian disaster.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Aurelia no longer brings her four-year-old daughter with her to beg on the streets of Finland's capital Helsinki. The 35-year-old Roma is too scared the little girl will be taken from her and put in foster care.

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The first prisoner tried at the Guantanamo war crimes court pledged a loyalty oath to Osama bin Laden, according to a U.S. naval investigator whose testimony on Wednesday might not be heard by the jury.

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama accused White House rival John McCain of trying on Wednesday to scare voters with attacks on his character, as McCain launched a new ad labeling Obama more of a celebrity than a leader.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday tried to ease its way out of a dispute between South Korea and Japan over a cluster of islands both countries claim, which had threatened to mar U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Seoul next week.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a big expansion of U.S. efforts to fight AIDS in Africa and elsewhere, warning that defeating this scourge requires an unprecedented investment over generations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidates have spent some $50 million and aired more than 100,000 TV ads since the start of the general election campaign in early June, far outpacing the rate of the 2004 campaign, a report showed on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A partisan election-year battle over high gasoline prices and a Republican push to open more U.S. coastal waters and federal land to oil and gas drilling has brought work in the U.S. Senate to a halt.

KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 30, Reuters - Republican White House hopeful John McCain's campaign said on Wednesday the indictment of fellow Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was a "sad reminder" the next president will face a tough task rebuilding the public trust.