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SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean truckers extended their strike on Friday over high fuel costs, adding to President Lee Myung-bak's woes just past 100 days in office, but a threatened major anti-government protest fizzled out.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox News Channel said Thursday that it had hired former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee as a contributor.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Long-shot White House hopeful Ron Paul formally abandoned his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, vowing to remain on the political scene.

MANILA (Reuters) - A cameraman in a three-member television team kidnapped in the southern Philippines has been freed and there is a good chance the other two will be released on Friday, officials said.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said on Friday liberation war veterans would take up arms if he loses a June 27 presidential run-off vote.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Thursday offered not to extradite a FARC guerrilla in exchange for the release of hostages after a rebel contact reached out to authorities about a deal.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haitian lawmakers rejected President Rene Preval's nominee to become prime minister on Thursday, in another blow to his efforts to establish a stable democracy in the impoverished Caribbean country.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York congressman who has been romantically linked by tabloid newspapers to several high-profile, beautiful women, is one step closer to creating a special work permit for foreign fashion models.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers troubled by Russia's help for Iran's nuclear program told the Bush administration on Thursday they did not trust Russia enough to approve a pact on civilian nuclear cooperation with Moscow.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A $20 billion Medicare refinancing bill, paid for mostly by reducing Medicare's reimbursement of private health plans, was blocked by U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, raising the likelihood a version with smaller cuts will emerge.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and Chinese companies will sign a raft of business deals on Monday ahead of high-level trade and economic talks between the two countries, a U.S. business group said on Thursday.

NASHUA, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday it was important to "talk up" the U.S. dollar and short-term steps were needed to strengthen its value.

ROME (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi, 71, said on Thursday he backed John McCain, also 71, to be the next U.S. president because if McCain wins, the Italian prime minister won't feel so old.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats pushed an election-year bill through the House of Representatives on Thursday to give more help to unemployed people facing tough job prospects in a stagnant U.S. economy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attacks on the North American Free Trade Agreement in the U.S. presidential campaign and in the U.S. Congress are prompting Canada to send out its diplomats to give the 14-year-old pact a boost.

GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion destroyed a Hamas bomb-maker's house in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least four people, including a baby, in what Hamas called an Israeli air strike and Israel described as an internal blast.

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A convoy of Pakistani lawyers set off on Thursday on the last leg of a cross-country rally, vowing to lay siege to parliament unless judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf last year get their jobs back.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday against nearly 10,000 victims of human rights abuses during the regime of Philippine ruler Ferdinand Marcos in a dispute over $35 million in an account held by the late dictator.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The two main parties in Kenya's coalition government retained their parliamentary balance on Thursday in by-elections that avoided the violence which erupted after the two sides clashed over a December presidential poll.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain and Malaysia tightened security on Thursday to stop strikes against soaring global fuel prices turning violent, as well as snarling road networks and slowing deliveries of food and raw materials.