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PERUGIA, Italy - Amanda Knox sought comfort from visiting family members Saturday on her first day in prison since being convicted of murdering her British roommate.

PERM, Russia - President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday demanded that Russia tighten its notoriously lax fire codes after the deadliest blaze since the Soviet era killed at least 107 people celebrating in a nightclub with a decorative twig ceiling and single exit.

KABUL - U.S. Marines and Afghan troops have killed at least seven Taliban fighters during the first U.S.-led offensive since President Barack Obama announced a new American war plan this week, Afghan officials said Saturday.

ABOARD THE CLIMATE EXPRESS - A train splashed with a green stripe carried 450 U.N. officials, delegates, climate activists and journalists from Brussels to the climate summit in Copenhagen on Saturday to symbolize efforts to reduce the convention's carbon footprint.

A verdict is expected for the 22-year-old American student on trial for killing her roommate while studying abroad in Italy

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - For 20 years, as this crowded planet grew warmer, nations have gathered annually to try to do something about it. History now brings them to this chilly northern capital, and to a crossroads.

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines - The Philippine president imposed martial law Saturday on a southern province where 57 people were killed in a political massacre, while security forces detained members of a powerful clan accused of plotting the attack and fomenting a rebellion.

ROME - Police captured Cosa Nostra's No. 2 in a raid in Sicily and nabbed another Mafia fugitive strolling down a Milan street Saturday, as authorities crossed more names off the nation's most wanted list, Italy's interior minister said.

HALABJA, Iraq - Six families nervously awaited the DNA tests on the young man who returned from Iran. They wondered: Could this be their son who was just an infant in 1988 and somehow lived through a deadly chemical attack by Saddam Hussein's regime?

Crucial dates in the slaying of British student Meredith Kercher and the subsequent investigation involving U.S. student Amanda Knox, Italian Raffaele Sollecito and Ivorian citizen Rudy Hermann Guede.

SYDNEY - A man dove face-first into an extremely venomous, peanut-sized jellyfish in waters off northeast Australia and medics flew him to a hospital intensive care unit to treat the potentially fatal sting, officials said Friday.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's vice president said Saturday his country needs 20 industrial-scale uranium enrichment facilities, a potentially dramatic expansion of its nuclear program in defiance of U.N. demands.

CAIRO - When Egypt's government banned Islamic veils and all-encompassing robes in the dorms of public universities, it cited reports of men wearing the garb to sneak into the women's quarters.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's economy added far more jobs than expected in November, more than erasing the losses in October and suggesting stronger fourth-quarter growth as predicted by the Bank of Canada.

PERUGIA, Italy (AFP) - Amanda Knox spent her first night behind bars as a convicted murderer after an Italian court early Saturday found her guilty in the brutal 2007 killing of her British housemate.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - The tsunami that killed more than 200 people in the Samoan islands and Tonga earlier this year towered up to 46 feet (14 meters) high — more then twice as tall as most of the buildings it slammed into, scientists said Friday.

MEXICO CITY - A pair of shootouts between troops and gunmen in northern Mexico have killed 13 people, including a bystander and a drug trafficker linked to the killing of a retired army officer.

BEIJING - A Chinese activist who has spoken out about the country's "black jails" said Saturday that he was being held against his will in one of the unofficial detention centers used to discourage people from complaining to the central government.

BANGKOK - Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, making his first public comments since being hospitalized, marked his 82nd birthday Saturday with a call for peace and stability in a country that has been rocked by anti-government protests.

MOSCOW - An explosion and fire blamed on fireworks tore through a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm early Saturday, killing 102 people, Russian officials said.

CONAKRY, Guinea - The No. 2 of Guinea's military junta returned to the country overnight, helping fill a dangerous power vacuum after the president was shot by his top aide and evacuated for emergency treatment, a government spokesman said Saturday.

LONDON (AFP) - World leaders heading to UN climate talks next week must not be distracted by "flat-earth" sceptics who deny humans are to blame for global warming, Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned Saturday.

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - An Indian Kashmiri separatist leader who supports talks with New Delhi over the restive region's future was fighting for his life Saturday after being critically wounded by unknown attackers.

TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's ruling party lost ground Saturday in closely watched local elections described by analysts as a test of China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou's performance during 19 months in office.

MONTERREY, Mexico (AFP) - Fourteen people were killed in northern Monterrey, including 11 drug traffickers and a woman passerby in a shootout with police, and two police officers during a prison breakout, state officials said.

GUATEMALA CITY - A retired army officer has been convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison in the forced disappearance of civilians during Guatemala's civil war.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - An accidental blast destroyed a shop in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least three people, officials said, unnerving a city frequently bombed by militants.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — The new NATO offensive in Helmand Province marked not only the largest assault yet for the VM-22 Osprey, but also the combat debut of the Marines' massive new combat mine and bomb-clearing machine, the Assault Breacher Vehicle (ABV), said a Marine Corps spokesman in Helmand.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese police said on Saturday that they arrested four children of US military personnel on suspicion of attempted murder after a woman crashed her moped when it hit a rope that was stretched across the road.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's China-friendly ruling party lost a county vote to the opposition on Saturday in elections seen as a first test for President Ma Ying-jeou's policy of engagement with Beijing.