International

BEIRUT -- Two explosions struck security compounds in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday, killing 25 people and wounding 175, state media reported, in a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad in the nearly 11-month-old uprising against his rule.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico -- Mexican troops have made a historic seizure of 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in the western state of Jalisco, an amount equivalent to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- A U.S. drone fired two missiles at a house in Pakistan's northwest tribal region Thursday, killing five suspected militants, intelligence officials said. The Taliban identified one of them as a prominent commander who has served as a key link to al-Qaida.

MOSCOW -- After more than two decades of drilling in Antarctica, Russian scientists have reached the surface of a gigantic freshwater lake hidden under miles of ice for some 20 million years -- a lake that may hold life from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets.

BEIRUT -- Syrian forces renewed their assault on the flashpoint city of Homs on Tuesday as Russia's foreign minister held talks in Damascus with President Bashar Assad about the country's escalating violence.

MANILA, Philippines  -- Rescuers dug with picks and shovels trying to reach dozens of people trapped under houses collapsed by a strong earthquake Monday that shook a central Philippine island and set off landslides.

At least 13 people were killed and 40 are believed missing, most of them along the shore near the epicenter of the 6.9-magnitude quake that struck in a narrow strait just off Negros Island.

OSLO, Norway -- The right-wing extremist who has admitted killing 77 people in the worst peacetime massacre that Norway has ever seen told a court Monday that he deserved a medal of honor for the bloodshed and demanded to be set free.