AP - Fidel Castro says his comments about Cuba's communist economic model were misinterpreted by a visiting American journalist.

AFP - In far northeastern Badakhshan province, thousands of people gathered outside a small NATO base in the capital Fayzabad, where they threw rocks at the gate and burned an American flag, police said.

AFP - Britain's Mark Cavendish claimed his second successive stage victory in the Tour of Spain on Friday with a sprint finish while Spain's Igor Anton retained the overall leader's red jersey.

Time.com - Pakistan's Floods: Through Hell and High Water

Time.com - Foreign businesses in China are voicing growing frustration about the country's heavily regulated market -- a bureaucratic maze many say is designed deliberately to hamstring non-Chinese players to the advantage of their local competitors

Reuters - BCE Inc, Canada's largest telecom, will pay C$1.3 billion ($1.26 billion) for full ownership of the country's biggest private broadcaster, betting on explosive growth in video over the Internet and wireless devices.

AP - Iran's president intervened to secure the release of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months, in part because of her gender, a news agency reported Friday.

AP - The American Embassy spokesman in Iraq says the United States and Iraq have signed an agreement to settle claims of Americans who say they were abused by Saddam Hussein's regime.

AP - More than 230,000 Japanese citizens listed in government records as at least 100 years old can't be found and may have died long ago, according to a government survey released Friday.

AP - Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, a special commission said Friday.