KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews from around the world gathered in a small Ukrainian city Thursday to mark the Jewish New Year at the tomb of their spiritual leader — an apparent record for the annual all-male pilgrimage banned for decades by the Soviets.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Some victims in a botched hostage rescue of a tourist bus in the Philippines may have been hit by police fire, the nation's top law enforcement official said Thursday.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) — A suicide car bomber hit the central market of a major city in Russia's North Caucasus on Thursday, killing at least 15 and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst terror attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said.

MADRID (AP) — Spain gave final approval Thursday to labor market reforms designed to shake up a listless economy and help slash a bloated deficit that has prompted European-wide worries of another Greek-style debt crisis.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union presidency said Thursday that Iran's suspension of a stoning sentence against a woman convicted of adultery is not enough and demands it be completely overturned.

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's communist economic model has come in for criticism from an unlikely source: Fidel Castro. The revolutionary leader told a visiting American journalist and a U.S.-Cuba policy expert that the island's state-dominated system is in need of change, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has taken pains to steer clear of local issues since illness forced him to step down as president four years ago.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea celebrated its 62nd anniversary Thursday with odes to supreme leader Kim Jong Il and pilgrimages to his late father's statue amid hints that a political meeting believed aimed at promoting his son as successor is imminent.

DONGSHIGU VILLAGE, China (AP) — A blind, self-taught activist lawyer who documented forced abortions and other abuses was released from a Chinese prison Thursday and promptly confined in his rural village with limited access to communication, a relative said.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — A suspected American missile strike killed five alleged militants in northwestern Pakistan early Thursday, an intelligence official said, the fourth such attack on suspected insurgent targets there in 24 hours.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Four prisoners with links to al-Qaida have escaped from the U.S.-controlled part of a maximum-security prison in Baghdad, U.S.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's top prosecutor said Thursday that while President Hamid Karzai backs the work of Western-supported anti-corruption teams, he wants investigations to be led by Afghans and free of interference from international advisers.

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — A small American church's plan to burn copies of the Quran is stirring outrage in Muslim nations, with lawyers protesting in Pakistan and Bahrain's government calling the burning a shameful attack on interfaith relations.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The legitimacy of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections is severely threatened by insurgent attacks on candidates and the lack of security provided by the government, an international rights group said Thursday.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Among the newly elected legislators who congregated for the first time Thursday at Parliament House were Australia's first Muslim lawmaker, its youngest-ever at 20 years old and the first Aboriginal in the House of Representatives.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The third Mexican mayor in a month was slain by suspected drug gang hitmen on the same day the U.S. secretary of state raised hackles in Mexico by saying the country is "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago."

DILI, East Timor (AP) — One of East Timor's deputy prime ministers said he has resigned after Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao publicly called him a "liar" for his outspoken critiques of the government's failure to tackle corruption and improve people's lives.

PARIS (AP) — A Muslim stonemason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore a Roman Catholic cathedral in France has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle peering out from its facade — with the inscription "God is great" written in French and Arabic.

HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — President Alan Garcia says he doesn't consider Lori Berenson a threat to Peru, suggesting he may be inclined to commute the New Yorker's accomplice-to-terrorism sentence so she can go home.

NEW YORK (AP) — Australia and New Zealand shared first place, and the United States tied for fifth, in a first-of-its kind survey ranking 153 nations on the willingness of their citizens to donate time and money to charity.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Ten people have been arrested in raids across Europe against computer pirates who put illegal copies of movies and television series on the Internet, Belgian police said Wednesday.

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The hidden face of the Emirates' economic crunch is in places such as Industrial Zone 18 and the ramshackle compound for about 700 migrant workers within.

HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro's warnings of a looming war between the United States and Iran have Cuba buzzing with fears of nuclear Armageddon.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Jeffrey Allen Weathers moved from Alaska to an oceanfront apartment in the Caribbean, but his new neighbors soon suspected the heavyset American hadn't come for the sun.