International Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) , North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.

TRIPOLI, Libya , Libyan officials say explosions went off in the capital Tripoli and the restive eastern city of Benghazi, but no casualties were reported. A security official says one bombing targeted an abandoned church in Benghazi that had been previously damaged by fire. The explosion damaged only a car parked outside.

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) , A once-fearsome cyclone that was threatening Bangladesh and Myanmar dissipated quickly, causing some deaths but largely relieving authorities who had told more than 1 million people to leave vulnerable coastal areas in preparation for a far worse storm.

The tragedy of Benghazi, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, seemed a cut-and-dried story in the days after a mob attacked the State Department's mission in eastern Libya. From President Obama on down, the recap was simple: A crowd of demonstrators angry over an obscure YouTube video that denigrated Islam's Prophet Muhammad spontaneously stormed the complex.

China is challenging a key American policy toward Japan: the unambiguous U.S. support of Japan's sovereign rights to the Ryukyu island chain, including the key strategic island of Okinawa. The United...

ANALYSIS/OPINION The Arab Spring that prompted the ouster of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya also led to the rise of Islamists who are bent on creating Islamic states that adhere to Shariah law , and that fate could await Syria after dictator Bashar Assad falls. The democratically elected governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are either led or beset by Islamists.

ANALYSIS/OPINION Rising persecution of minority religious communities in Pakistan, Iran and Syria , and other nations , is a serious threat to stability in those countries and their neighbors, a panel of specialists said at a Hudson Institute forum this week, showing how religious tensions can have larger political ramifications in hot spots around the world.

"In together, out together," Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende explained when asked how long his country's combat troops would stay in Afghanistan after U.S. forces leave next year. "But we are not going to abandon Afghanistan overnight," he added.

TEHRAN , Intelligent and confident, Parisa, 23, is from what could be loosely termed a middle-class family and has a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from Islamic Azad University. On weekends, she sells her body for profit on the streets of North Tehran.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) , Venezuelans scrambled to stock up on toilet paper Thursday as fears of a bathroom emergency spread despite the socialist government's promise to import 50 million rolls. After years of economic dysfunction, the country has gotten used to shortages of medicines and basic food items like milk and sugar but the scarcity of bathroom tissue has caused unusual alarm.

BAGHDAD (AP) , The first exiles from an Iranian opposition group have moved to Albania from a camp near Baghdad as part of a relocation process, the United Nations said Thursday, a step toward defusing an explosive dispute left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the U.S.-led ousting of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) , A suicide car bombing tore through a U.S. convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including six Americans in a blast so powerful it rattled the other side of the Afghan capital. U.S. soldiers rushed to help, some wearing only T-shirts or shorts under their body armor.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) , At least five times in the last few months, members of a Honduras street gang were killed or went missing just after run-ins with the U.S.-supported national police, The Associated Press has determined, feeding accusations that they were victims of federal death squads.

WASHINGTON (AP) , President Barack Obama waded into British politics Monday, suggesting that the United Kingdom seek to reform its relationship with the European Union before it decides to simply break away from it.

BAGHDAD (AP) , A sharp rise in attacks on Sunni holy sites in Iraq is feeding fears that the country could spiral into a new round of sectarian violence similar to the bloodletting that brought Iraq to its knees in 2006 and 2007.