Gwinnett Daily Post

Taliban leaders threaten to kill US soldier

KABUL - Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.

Also Thursday, Canadian authorities announced that a Canadian soldier was killed southwest of Kandahar, bringing to 47 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this month. That makes July the deadliest month of the war for foreign troops - with nearly half the month to go.

Black boxes from Iran's plane recovered

TEHRAN, Iran - Investigators have recovered two black boxes belonging to a Russian-made jetliner that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran, Iran's state radio reported Thursday.

All 168 people aboard the Caspian Airlines aircraft bound for Yerevan, Armenia, on Wednesday were killed.

The radio's report quoted chief investigator Ahmad Majidi as saying one of the two recovered boxes was damaged. It said the boxes - the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders - would likely be sent to the aircraft's Russian manufacturers for analysis.

Canada head: Facebook violates privacy law

TORONTO - Canada's privacy commissioner accused Facebook on Thursday of breaching Canadian law by keeping users' personal information indefinitely after members close their accounts.

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart released a report that also accuses Facebook of disclosing personal information about users to the nearly 1 million third-party developers worldwide who create Facebook applications such as games and quizzes.

18 hurt by Baghdad bomb

BAGHDAD - Eighteen people were injured Thursday in an explosion that targeted a minibus transporting Shiite pilgrims to a holy shrine to commemorate the death of a revered imam.

The roadside bomb wounded 18 men from Najaf in southern Iraq and damaged the bus, which was taking them to the shrine in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah, according to a Baghdad emergency police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media.