World - AP

POTI, Georgia - The flagship of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet anchored outside the key Georgian port of Poti on Friday, bringing in tons of humanitarian aid to a port still partially occupied by hundreds of Russian troops.

KIEV, Ukraine - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has pledged U.S. support for Ukraine following last month's war between neighboring Russia and Georgia.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The real question in Pakistan's presidential election is not who the winner will be but whether the new leader will be any more successful than his predecessor in tackling extremism and economic malaise.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A maritime official says an Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew has been hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia.

MANILA, Philippines - A U.N. official said Friday his agency has increased food supplies to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting between government troops and Muslim separatist rebels in the southern Philippines.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - An explosion possibly caused by a missile strike killed five suspected foreign militants near the Afghan border on Friday, Pakistani officials said.

GONAIVES, Haiti - The convoy rumbled out of the U.N. base toward a flooded, starving and seething city Thursday, carrying some of the first food aid since Tropical Storm Hanna killed 137 Haitians and drowned Gonaives in muddy water three days ago.

BEIT IBA, West Bank - Tony Blair toured a Palestinian aluminum factory and was told it runs at one-third capacity because of Israeli import restrictions. He promised he'll take it up with Israeli authorities.

POTI, Georgia - The U.S. Embassy says the flagship of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet is to arrive in the Georgian port of Poti on Friday.

BEIJING - The top American nuclear envoy arrived in Beijing on Friday for talks on North Korea's nuclear programs as Pyongyang took steps seen as reversing its promised disarmament.

CAIRO, Egypt - It's the Mideast version of a sordid soap opera. A Lebanese pop star is brutally murdered in her luxury Dubai apartment, her throat slashed. Arrested in her death: One of Egypt's most politically connected businessmen, accused of paying $2 million to have her killed.

MOSCOW - The Russian Foreign Ministry says Russia plans no military actions in response to the increased presence of U.S. ships in the Black Sea.

MOSCOW - He reportedly saved a TV crew from the jaws of a tiger and flexed his muscles before cameras in Siberia.

TOKYO - Brash, right-leaning former Foreign Minister Taro Aso announced Friday that he will run for ruling party president in a move that would put him on track to take over as Japan's next prime minister.

PATNA, India - Authorities warned villagers in flood-ravaged northern India on Friday not to return to their homes because an unpredictable river that burst its banks could overflow again. But thousands ignored the warning and took the receding waters as a sign that the danger had passed, officials said.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - When Hala al-Masaad invited her girlfriends over to celebrate her 18th birthday with cake and juice, the high school student was stepping into an unusual public debate. Is celebrating birthdays un-Islamic?

BAGHDAD - The notorious Abu Ghraib prison is getting a facelift: work to reopen the facility and construct a museum documenting Saddam Hussein's crimes — but not the abuses committed there by U.S. guards.

JERUSALEM - For the first time since Golda Meir more than three decades ago, a woman is within reach of becoming the prime minister of Israel, a nation dominated by macho military men and a religious establishment with strict views on the role of women.

MBABANE, Swaziland - Swaziland and its king are throwing a joint 40th birthday bash this weekend, but the mood is far from celebratory in this small southern African land of paupers and princes, mud huts and palaces.