Hamas declares formal halt to cease-fire

JERUSALEM -- Hamas declared a formal end to its cease-fire with Israel on Thursday, ruling out an extension of a 6-month-old pact that had begun to fray weeks ago with tit-for-tat attacks across Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the militant group that governs Gaza, said the truce was expiring at 6 a.m. Friday. He said it was not being renewed because "the enemy refused to comply" with promises to lift a crippling blockade of the Palestinian enclave.

The decision's immediate effect was unclear. Hamas stopped short of threatening an escalation of rocket and mortar attacks, and Israeli officials said they were reluctant to launch a major military offensive in the densely populated territory.

Iraqis celebrate reopened book market

BAGHDAD -- Iraqis danced and played traditional music in celebration as Baghdad's renowned Mutanabi book market formally reopened Thursday more than 18 months after a huge truck bombing devastated the center of Iraqi intellectual life.

The ceremony for the book market, named after a 10th century Baghdad poet, marks another step in the return to normalcy in Baghdad after years of horrific violence.

Shoppers flee as riots continue in Athens

ATHENS, Greece -- Masked youths set up burning barricades and threw fire bombs and chunks of marble at riot police Thursday, after a protest march erupted into new fighting that sent Christmas shoppers and panicked parents fleeing to safety.

After two weeks of unrelenting rioting set off by the fatal police shooting of a teenager, a slogan spray-painted outside the Bank of Greece summed up the mood as Greeks prepared for Christmas: "Merry crisis and a happy new fear."

Castro offers to exchange dissidents

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Cuban President Raul Castro made an unprecedented offer Thursday to exchange political dissidents jailed in his country for five Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. for espionage.

Castro, on his first official visit to Brazil since taking over as president, also reiterated Cuba's willingness to discuss the U.S. embargo with incoming President Barack Obama.

Castro said, "We will send those prisoners you talk about [to the United States] with their families. But give us back our five heroes."

He referred to the so-called "Cuban Five," who were convicted in 2001 on espionage charges and are lionized in Cuba as heroes. Cuban exile groups in the U.S. say they were justly punished.

Iraqi shoe thrower asks for pardon

BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush is begging for a pardon for what he described as "an ugly act," the prime minister's spokesman said Thursday.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for an Iraqi-owned television station based in Cairo, Egypt, could face two years imprisonment for insulting a foreign leader. He remained in custody Thursday night.

"It is too late to reverse the big and ugly act that I perpetrated," al-Zeidi wrote in a letter delivered to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to the prime minister's spokesman.