Mali's coup leader said on Saturday the junta would hand power to civilians within days in a deal under which neighbouring nations agreed to lift sanctions and help tackle Tuareg rebels who have seized much of the north.
All residents of an apartment complex for the elderly in Virginia that was destroyed when a US Navy fighter jet crashed into it on Friday have been accounted for, with only one person still hospitalized with minor injuries, a rescue crew chief said on Saturday.
Pope Benedict, leading the world's Catholics into Easter, said on Saturday technological progress, in the absence of awareness of God and moral values, posed a threat to the world.
Syrian troops pounded opposition areas on Saturday, activists said, killing 53 people in an offensive that has sent thousands of refugees surging into Turkey before next week's UN-backed ceasefire aimed at staunching a year of bloodshed.
Afghanistan and the United States reached a deal to curb night raids on Afghan homes, giving Kabul a veto over the operations despised by most local people and clearing the way for a wider pact securing a US presence.
Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure resigned on Sunday, paving the way for the soldiers who ousted him in a coup to stick by a deal to restore civilian rule and hand power to the president of the National Assembly.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition has inched ahead of the main opposition parties for the first time in two years, a poll showed - thanks to a surge in support for the maverick Pirate Party at the expense of the Social Democrats.
A bid for power by Hosni Mubarak's former intelligence chief is an insult to Egypt's revolution that, if successful, would trigger a second nationwide revolt, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate for Egypt's presidency said.
North Korea, pressing ahead with a rocket launch in defiance of a UN resolution, is also preparing a third nuclear weapons test, South Korean news reports said, a move bound to scare neighbours and infuriate the West.
Syria demanded written guarantees that insurgents will stop fighting before it pulls back troops under the terms of a peace plan, casting additional doubt over a truce due to start this week.