Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel risked angering Muslims by speaking at an awards ceremony on Wednesday for a Dane whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked sometimes violent protests by Muslims five years ago.

Reuters - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb and a roadside bomb exploded near a bus terminal in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding a score of others, police and interior ministry sources said.

Toxic smoke from a fire at a fertilizer and herbicide plant in Lévis, south of Quebec City, has forced about 50 people from their homes.

Reuters - BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia made a major concession to the European Union on Wednesday by agreeing to soften a draft U.N. resolution on the future of Kosovo and seek dialogue with the breakaway country.

Former federal Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has been released from a Mexican hospital after a severe case of food poisoning, his office says.

Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will push billions of dollars in new business tax incentives and spending on big construction projects on Wednesday, as he tries to convince a balky Congress to pass measures intended to spur the economy and create jobs.

Reuters - OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Conservative government has seen its lead over the Liberals evaporate following recent controversies and the two parties are now statistically deadlocked, according to a public opinion poll released on Wednesday.

Two genes that appear linked to an aggressive form of ovarian cancer have been identified by U.S. researchers.

People in parts of Sindh province in southern Pakistan are bracing for more floods as water threatens to pour into more towns and villages.

Reuters - TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian authorities have suspended the execution by stoning of a woman convicted of adultery, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday, after weeks of condemnation from around the world.

Police in the U.K. say they have charged a Lebanese man with murder in the case of a Canadian whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase at Heathrow Airport.

Reuters - KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan police went on alert on Wednesday to guard against demonstrations triggered by a U.S. church's plan to burn a copy of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks which has drawn global condemnation.

The United Nations reports more than 500 rapes have been committed by armed combatants in eastern Congo since late July - more than double the number previously reported.

The Transportation Safety Board has rejected a request by the families of victims of a helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland in 2009 to see a draft report on the accident that killed 17, according to their lawyer.

The folk story of an ancient Chinese woman who replaces her father in battle will get its second live-action adaptation - this time in English starring Zhang Ziyi.

Police in St. John's say thieves have been converting clotheslines poles to criminal tools to quietly steal goods through open windows.

The stoning death sentence passed against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery has been suspended and is under review, Iran's English-language television station reports.

Montreal police are investigating the slaying of a 45-year-old psychiatric patient in the city's Pointe-aux-Trembles district early Wednesday morning.

Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - A United Nations agency will report that opium poppy production has fallen in Afghanistan this year but there are enough stocks to keep supplying heroin production, the agency's new chief said on Wednesday.

Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - BP shifted much of the blame for a rig blast that led to the United States' worst-ever oil spill onto its contractors Transocean and Halliburton.