AFP - More than 80,000 Cambodian workers are planning a massive week-long strike over wages that threatens production at around a sixth of the country's garment factories, trade unionists said Friday.

AFP - Chancellor George Osborne came under fire from opposition MPs and members of his coalition Friday after warning a further four billion pounds in cuts will be made to Britain's "out of control" welfare budget on top of an 11 billion reduction outlined in June.

AP - African doctors and rights activists are pressing their governments to spend more on health as part of a campaign to stop children from getting AIDS.

AP - Flags flew at half-staff in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz on Friday and stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140.

Reuters - Deutsche Bank is set to lead rivals raising billions of euros as radical new global capital rules to be unveiled this weekend bite, and showed it may be good to get the jump on the pack.

AP - Will he or won't he? Negotiations between a local Muslim cleric and the leader of a tiny Florida church who had threatened to publicly burn copies of Islam's holy text left the heated debate in a state of confusion with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks a day away.

Reuters - U.S. crude approached a three-week high near $76 on Friday, after record U.S. inventories were offset by the shutdown of a major pipeline, but a leading forecaster said oil demand would remain tepid.

Reuters - Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world's top cellphone maker, brought in Microsoft's Stephen Elop to replace its embattled chief executive and lead a renewed effort to compete in the smartphone market.

Reuters - Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.3 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.1 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.4 percent at 0850 GMT.

AFP - French carmakers Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen said Friday they each plan to pay back a third of their three-billion-euro (3.8-billion-dollar) state loans ahead of time.

AFP - An independent Australian politician whose support was crucial to keeping Prime Minister Julia Gillard in power Friday knocked back an offer to become a minister in her minority government.

AP - Religious and political leaders across the Muslim world welcomed a decision by a small American church to suspend its plans to torch copies of their holy book — but some said Friday the damage has already been done.

AP - The Mexican police officers who arrested infamous drug suspect Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie," did not initially know who they had caught, according to a booking report obtained Thursday.

AP - Iran said Thursday it will free Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months, as an act of clemency to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Reuters - Democrats in Congress are distancing themselves from President Barack Obama's push to let taxes rise for the wealthiest Americans, fearing it will further harm them in November's mid-term elections.

Reuters - Regulators probing the stock market "flash crash" last May still have not uncovered a single cause but will point to "stub quotes" and other previously identified issues as having exacerbated the market's dramatic drop, according to two sources familiar with the probe.