Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati met Wednesday with former prime ministers, including outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Mr. Hariri headed a Western-backed Cabinet and said earlier this week he would not participate in any new government led by a Hezbollah-backed candidate.

The Shi'ite militant group and its allies resigned from Mr. Hariri's coalition Cabinet earlier this month, causing it to collapse.

The United States is reconsidering economic and military support for Lebanon after Hezbollah won a prominent role in the government of the fragile, religiously-divided nation.

Funeral services were held Tuesday for three park rangers and five Congolese soldiers who were killed during a violent attack in the DRC’s Virunga National Park. Park officials say a rocket-propelled grenade hit a patrol vehicle when it drove into an ambush about one kilometer north of Mabenga, just inside the park border.

The rangers were deployed along a road that passes through the national park in an attempt to secure a safe passage for the public.

Authorities in Egypt have arrested 19 people with suspected links to al-Qaida.

Egypt's interior minister said in an interview with the state-owned Al-Ahram daily on Tuesday that the group includes Tunisians and Libyans.

Habib al-Adly said the group was using Egypt as a transit point from which they would travel to Iraq to join al-Qaida groups there. He added that security forces had confiscated weapons and ammunition.

Lebanon's president has appointed Hezbollah-backed candidate Najib Mikati as prime minister-designate while protests raged Tuesday in several cities.

President Michel Suleiman's office said Mikati would form a new government.

Mikati told reporters that he wants to form a unity government. Reuters news agency quotes him as saying talks about the makeup of the government will begin Thursday.

At least 35 people have been killed and more than 145 others wounded in a suicide bombing that ripped through the international arrivals section of Moscow's main airport terminal Monday.

Witnesses said people covered in blood poured through the emergency exits. Video footage shows bodies lying around the smoke filled area, and victims being carried out of the Domodedovo airport on stretchers.

A man claiming to be al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden has said in an audio message that the release of French hostages depends on the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.

The message, broadcast by al-Jazeera Friday, said the French people will pay a "high price" for President Nicholas Sarkozy's policies.

He said Mr. Sarkozy's refusal to remove troops from Afghanistan is a "green light" to kill hostages.

Extremists are holding at least eight French hostages, five believed to be held in Niger, two in Afghanistan and one in Somalia.

Ukraine officials said two explosions that rocked an eastern town early Thursday were criminal acts, and that more bombings have been threatened.

Police say the two simultaneous, early-morning blasts near a coal company building and a central market in Makiyivka damaged nearby buildings, but that no one was hurt.

Ukraine's SBU security service said a note was found near the scene demanding $5.4 million and threatening five more bombings later in the day if the sum is not paid. The note said bombs already had been placed around the city.

A Somali man accused of trying to kill a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad has gone on trial Wednesday in Denmark. Danish intelligence police say they believe he is close to the Islamist movement al-Shabaab.

The prosecutor in the case, Kirsten Dyrman, spoke outside the court on Wednesday.

She said the defendant is accused of an attempted terror attack and attempted murder.

The defendant, 29-year-old Mohamed Geele, allegedly broke into the house of a Danish cartoonist in January last year.

The British government has moved to designate the Pakistani Taliban as a terrorist group, a move that would make membership in and fundraising for the organization illegal in Britain.

British Home Secretary Theresa May introduced the order Tuesday, saying it was a tough, but necessary step in the fight against terrorism. She said the move is not a course of action the British government takes lightly.

May said the order means membership in the Tehrik-e-Taliban group would be a criminal offense, and that the group cannot operate lawfully in the country.