AP - A lawyer for five Cuban agents convicted of espionage and sentenced to long jail terms in the U.S. says there could be a political solution linking his clients' fate with that of an American contractor imprisoned in Cuba.

AP - Conservationists in Zimbabwe say round-the-clock efforts to save a baby elephant have failed. The six-week-old calf, who was separated from his mother on a busy highway and hand fed for three weeks, has died, apparently from pneumonia.

Reuters - Lebanese banks which worked for years to build up business in neighboring Syria have been quietly implementing U.S. and European Union sanctions against Damascus to avoid jeopardizing their international operations, bankers and economists say.

Reuters - A few weeks ago, a leading opposition activist sat down in a downtown Khartoum office to talk to a journalist. The young man immediately removed the battery from his cellphone.

Scientists said Wednesday they had reached the waters of a lake that has been sealed off for millions of years.