Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi bombarded the besieged rebel city of Misrata and battled their way into its center. US, British and French leaders have redefined the aim of their air war to regime change.

The owners of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant must start paying up to 1 million yen US$12,000 per household to residents displaced or forced indoors by the nuclear accident there, Japan's government ordered on April 15.  

Syrian security forces used tear gas and batons to disperse tens of thousands of protesters in the capital, Damascus, witnesses said.

Leaders of Britain, France and the United States vowed on Friday to keep up their military campaign in Libya until Muammar Gaddafi leaves power, and rebels said his forces pounded the city of Misrata with missiles.

A radical Islamist group hanged an Italian activist Friday hours after kidnapping him in Gaza, Hamas said, as Rome denounced the "barbaric murder."

A suicide bomber attacked an Indonesian mosque during Friday prayers, shouting "God is Great" as he detonated his device, wounding 26 people, officials said.

The embattled operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant promised on Friday an initial one million yen ($12,000) in compensation to each family living close to the facility.

Mexican authorities have arrested 16 police officers suspected of protecting four members of a notorious drug cartel for the massacres of at least 145 people in a northern border state.

The United Nations on Thursday confirmed 34 people have been found dead at an Iranian dissident camp in Iraq after Iraqi security forces moved against the camp last week.

A budget deal reached last week to avert a government shutdown won approval on April 14 from both the House and Senate, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.