A rover of "monster truck" proportions zoomed toward Mars on an 8½-month, 354 million-mile journey Saturday, the biggest, best equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet.

NASA's six-wheeled, one-armed wonder, Curiosity, will reach Mars next summer and use its jackhammer drill, rock-zapping laser machine and other devices to search for evidence that Earth's next-door neighbor might once have been home to the teeniest forms of life.

Colombian FARC rebels executed four members of the security forces during a botched mission to free them from a decade as hostages, the most violent act by the group since troops killed its leader Alfonso Cano this month.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has a policy of killing hostages if troops approach their camps, shot three of the captives in the head and the fourth in the back, President Juan Manuel Santos said.
The bodies were found in chains, he said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's move to open India's protected retail sector to global supermarket giants last week surprised critics who had written him off as a policy ditherer, but he was probably motivated by expedience rather than any reformist zeal.
India's stellar economic growth is slowing, the rupee has skidded to record lows and inflation is stuck close to a double-digit clip. Faced with this predicament, Singh may have simply weighed the benefits of opening a $450 billion market to foreign investment against the political risk, and taken his chance.

Every revolution has its losers. Libya's new rulers, who swept to power three months ago in a revolt against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule, have promised the country a brighter future. In the biggest cities, celebratory gunfire and the war-cry "God is great" can still be heard daily.
In Bani Walid, long a stronghold for Gaddafi loyalists and one of their last bastions to fall during this year's civil war, the mood is entirely different.

U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year, winding down combat in the Taliban heartland and testing the U.S. view that Afghan forces are capable of leading the fight against a battered but not yet beaten insurgency in the country's southwestern reaches, American military officers say.
At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will go to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital.
Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview that the number of Marines in Helmand province will drop "markedly" in 2012, and the role of those who stay will shift from countering the insurgency to training and advising Afghan security forces.

Thousands of self-proclaimed "undead" have gathered in the historic center of Mexico's capital for a "Zombie Walk" that organizers hope sets a world record.

The announced 9,860 registered participants are dressed in rags and ghoulish makeup to look bloody and decaying.

Organizer Pablo Guisa says the fifth annual Mexico City event is meant to celebrate diversity and human rights. The participants also collected donations for a local food bank.

Iran will target NATO's missile defense installations in Turkey if the U.S. or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic, a senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saturday.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards' aerospace division, said the warning is part of a new defense strategy to counter what he described as an increase in threats from the U.S. and Israel.

Tensions have been rising between Iran and the West since the release of a report earlier this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency that said for the first time that

New Zealand's re-elected center-right government claimed a mandate on Sunday to push on with up to $5 billion worth of asset sales and welfare reforms and said it would quickly get down to forming a new administration.
The National Party, led by former foreign exchange dealer John Key, scored 48 percent of the vote, increased its number of seats to 60 from 58 and gained the support of two small parties to guarantee a majority in the 121-seat parliament.

Presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei has offered to lead a government of national unity, raising the pressure on Egypt's ruling generals amid protests demanding an immediate end to army rule.
Activists are calling on citizens to converge again in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday, a day before the start of a parliamentary election overshadowed by political turmoil and the threat of violence.
The interim government led by Essam Sharaf resigned last week as protests against army rule intensified in Cairo and other cities. The violence has left 42 people dead.

Google unveiled its much-anticipated digital music store Wednesday, opening a new front in its battle with Apple to provide services over mobile devices.

For the first time, Google Inc. will sell songs on the Android Market, its online store for apps, movies and books. The service is available over the next few days to customers in the U.S., but it aims to roll it out eventually to some 200 million Android users globally.

At the Mellitah Oil & Gas facility, a joint venture between Italy's oil major Eni and the Libyan national oil company, fighters from the mountain city of Zintan stand guard.

Deep in the Sahara desert, 700 km south, another brigade of fighters from Zintan -- a city which prides itself as being one of the first to rise up against Muammar Gaddafi -- say they are securing the Akakus oil field in the absence of a national army.

Some of the fighters who ousted Gaddafi are not prepared to wait

Hungary believes the source of low levels of radioactive iodine detected in Europe over the past few weeks was probably an isotope maker in Budapest, the U.N. nuclear agency said on Thursday.

Hungary's nuclear authority told the International Atomic Energy Agency that iodine-131 had been released from the Institute of Isotopes Ltd from September 8 to November 16.

"The cause of the release is under investigation," the Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement.

Aiming to knit Asian allies ever closer as China's might rises, President Barack Obama is completing a nine-day Asia-Pacific trip with a visit to his boyhood home of Indonesia, where he'll become the first U.S. president to take part in a summit of East Asian nations.

Security issues and the U.S. vision for an increasingly robust American role in Asia are expected to be central themes for Obama's participation in the East Asia Summit in Bali, where the

Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians may eventually have no haven left on the globe because of a triple threat of worsening scourges, a new study predicts.

Scientists have long known that amphibians are under attack from a killer fungus, climate change and shrinking habitat. In the study appearing online Wednesday in the journal Nature, computer models project that in about 70 years those three threats will spread, leaving no part of the world immune from one of the problems.

A national park in Congo best known for its endangered mountain gorillas is now inviting tourists to go on overnight treks to see a volcano spurting fountains of lava nearly 1,000 feet into the air.

Mount Nyamulagira began erupting on Nov. 6 and could continue to do so for days, or even months.

"Last night's was the most spectacular yet," spokeswoman LuAnne Chad said Monday from Virunga National Park.

 A Russian spacecraft carrying an American and two Russians blasted off Monday from the snow-covered Kazakh steppes in a faultless launch that eased anxiety about the future of U.S. and Russian space programs.

The Soyuz TMA-22 lifted off as scheduled at 8:14 a.m. (0414 GMT) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome to carryNASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov andAnatoly Ivanishin on a mission to the International Space Station.

Agra: While many historical buildings across India will sport a blue look to support a campaign for creating awareness about diabetes Sunday evening, uncertainty about permission to turn the lights on at the Taj Mahal continues.

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) officials here appear hesitant to allow permission to NGO HEAL Foundation to use artificial lights to give a blue look to the 17th century Mughal wonder.

"Today it is one NGO, tomorrow there may be many others. It will set a wrong precedent and we cannot take a risk in the matter," said an ASI official who did not want to be named.

The Arab League suspended Syria and called on its army to stop killing civilians in a surprise move on Saturday that some Western leaders said should prompt tougher international action against President Bashar al-Assad.

Hours after the League's decision, hundreds of Assad supporters armed with sticks and knives attacked the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus and Turkish and French consulates in the city of Latakia, residents said.

Remember when gifts were objects, purchased or crafted and wrapped with a bow, then presented with a flourish?

Over the last few years, gift cards have become a popular alternative, and now as we become increasingly connected to oursmartphones, laptops and e-readers, gifts are going digital, too. Here's what you need to know to navigate a holiday shoppingseason without gift wrap or envelopes or even little plastic cards.

The Penn State players left the field with their heads bowed, the fans mostly silent.

A lifetime worth of emotions was crammed into the past week. Shock, rage, regret and, now, exhaustion. The child sex-abuse scandal involving former assistant Jerry Sandusky cost Joe Paterno his job and, no doubt, scarred Penn State's soul.

A football game on a brilliant autumn afternoon won't erase it.

After decades of scouring the universe, astronomers finally have found two immense clouds of gas that are pristine — free of the metals fired out into the cosmos by stars.

The findings, published in Thursday's Science journal, provide the first solid detection of primitive, uncontaminated gas and support the long-standing theory as to how the chemical elements were formed in the early universe. It is these types of pure gas cloudsthat formed the first stars.

The Republicans vying to challenge President Obama in next year's election slammed his administration's foreign policy, suggesting he's bungled efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and played politics with a troop drawdown in Afghanistan.

"If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," Mitt Romney declared in a foreign policy debate in South Carolina sponsored by CBS News and National Journal. "If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."

After a tumultuous week that saw the departure and replacement of the Oscar show's host and producer, the film academy enjoyed a night of good vibes Saturday at its third annual Governors Awards. You might even say the force was with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Armed storm troopers ensured guests were in their seats and paying attention as Darth Vader opened the evening honoring James Earl Jones, Oprah Winfrey and makeup artist Dick Smith. Under Vader's helmet was academy president Tom Sherak, who welcomed the audience of industry insiders with, "How was your week?"

By the third time around, it really shouldn't be a surprise. The latest "Call of Duty" video game set a first-day sales record this week, generating $400 million in sales in its first 24 hours in stores. That breaks the record its predecessor set this time last year.

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" is the third game in the military shooter series to set such a record. Last year, "Call of Duty: Black Ops" raked in $360 million in its first 24 hours on sale. "Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2," sold 4.7 million copies in its first 24 hours to reap $310 million

EMI Group Ltd., the iconic British music company that is home to The Beatles, Coldplay and Katy Perry, is being split and sold for $4.1 billion.

The deals will open EMI's buyers, Universal Music and Sony/ATV, to regulatory scrutiny as they increase their dominance of the music industry.

Universal Music Group said Friday that it will pay 1.2 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) for the recording division, joining Universal artists including Lady Gaga and Eminem with EMI superstars such as David Guetta and Lady Antebellum.

A personal assistant-turned-personal manager to Michael Jackson said the King of Pop had been taking propofol as early as 1999, and that the singer was drugged up ahead of his 2001 30th anniversary concerts.

Frank Cascio, who became a family friend to Jackson at age 5 and eventually one of the singer's closest friends and employees, writes in a new book that he first noticed Jackson taking the drug Demerol while accompanying the singer on his "Dangerous" tour in 1993.

He writes in his new book, "My Friend Michael: An Ordinary Friendship with an Extraordinary Man," that Jackson started the first of two anniversary shows in 2001 an hour late as a result of being drugged up in his dressing room.

"My naive belief that Michael wouldn't let his medicine interfere with the show blew up in my face," Cascio writes. "I can't begin to describe my disappointment and panic at this moment."

Jerry Ensminger ticks off the list of cities where he's traveled with the documentary that tells the story of water contamination at the Camp Lejeune Marine base: Woodstock, San Diego, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and this weekend, an emotional homecoming in Jacksonville, N.C.

Finally, both the retired Marine master sergeant and the movie about him, "Semper Fi: Always Faithful," are coming back to where the story began in July 1983, when his middle daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG does not need a new cost cutting program after it announced a big savings plan last year, Chairman Franz Humer told a newspaper on Sunday.

"We don't need new programs... but we will always pursue efficiency improvements," Humer told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper in an interview.

Last November, Roche said it would cut 4,800 jobs to save 2.4 billion Swiss francs in annual costs from 2012 onwards as the pharma industry grapples with mounting pressure on prices.

It was supposed to be a union of two legendary business dynasties, one West, one East. Nathaniel Philip Rothshild, the 40-year-old scion of the storied European banking family, forged a deal a year ago with the Bakrie brothers, one of Indonesia's mightiest business families, to create an international coal-mining titan.

That deal last November seemed incredible from the start; the dream of creating the world's biggest thermal coal company, with mines in Indonesian Borneo, and aiming to be one of the biggest listed companies on the London exchange. Now a year later the partnership could be on the brink of collapse.

Bangkok authorities are telling more residents to leave as floodwaters threaten southwestern neighborhoods in the Thai capital.

Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said people should evacuate three neighborhoods due to surging water levels. He said Sunday pumps were operating around the clock and more pumps were being added to help drain the water.

Still, floodwaters are receding elsewhere. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said previously the city center would have light flooding if the water penetrated that far but western areas of Bangkok were threatened with inundation.

Australia-listed Albidon, 50 percent owned by China's Jinchuan Group, has temporarily suspended operations at it Zambia's Munali nickel mine citing cash flow problems due to low metal prices.

"There can be no guarantee that alternative finance will be obtained in the near future and therefore (Albidon) believes in suspending operations for the company," it said in a statement posted at the weekend on the company website.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai's fast-growing airline Emirates kicked off the Middle East's biggest airshow Sunday with a huge order for 50 Boeing 777s, marking the U.S. aircraft maker's biggest-ever single order in dollar terms.

Emirates and Boeing Co. valued the unexpectedly large deal for an extended range version of the 777-300 at $18 billion — the total by list price — though the carrier is unlikely to pay that much. Airlines typically negotiate big discounts, especially when buying in bulk.

Asia-Pacific leaders will call on countries on Sunday to do what they can to prop up economic growth, rallying around the common threat from Europe's debt crisis despite divisions over trade and currency policies.

Fresh off a rare success in securing agreement on the outlines of a regional trade deal, the heads of the 21 nations that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will turn their attention to the more immediate problem of preventing contagion from Europe.