LOS ANGELES (AP) ― A judge who presided over the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor refused Friday to release him on bail, saying he would be a danger to any community where he might try to practice medicine.Conrad Murray’s lawyer asked for his release pending appeal of his involuntary manslaughter conviction, but Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor said he saw little chance that Murray would prevail in getting his case overturned.Pastor made it clear that his view of Murray had not softened sinc

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ― Former South African President Nelson Mandela was hospitalized for a test to determine what is behind an undisclosed stomach ailment, and the country’s current leader said the much beloved 93-year-old icon was in no danger.Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, has officially retired and last appeared in public in July 2010. He became South Africa’s first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term.Mandela “has h

KABUL (AFP) ― NATO on Saturday pulled all its staff out of Afghan government ministries after two U.S. military advisors were shot dead in the interior ministry, as anti-U.S. protests raged for a fifth day.Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying it was in revenge for the burning of Korans at a U.S.-run military base ― an incident that forced U.S. President Barack Obama to apologize to the Afghan people.In a day of violence across the country, a U.N. compound came under

U.S. secretary of state warns against return to  autocracy; Tunisia was cradle of the Arab Spring revolutionsTUNIS (AP) ― U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday warned of backsliding in the democratic transformations under way in the Mideast and North Africa, and appealed for countries in the region to fulfill the promise of reform offered by the Arab Spring.In Tunisia, the catalyst for the tumult that engulfed the region last year, Clinton said the continued embrace of refor

SYDNEY (AFP) ― Kevin Rudd’s bid to lead Australia again was boosted Saturday when opinion polls showed he remains more popular than Prime Minister Julia Gillard and likely Labor’s best chance of winning an election.Rudd will face off against colleague Gillard on Monday in a ballot taken by the 103 members of the Labor Party caucus after a divisive battle that has seen the ruling party engage in unprecedented infighting.Gillard has said she is confident she will win the vote but Rudd has called o

 Under powerful floodlights and surrounded by rings of soldiers and police, heavy machines began Saturday night to demolish the three-story compound in northwestern Pakistan where Osama bin Laden lived for years and was killed by U.S. commandos last May.In this photograph taken on May 3, 2011,