Chinese premier pledges fair trading in Mexico

MEXICO CITY -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sought to assure Mexican leaders that their country's economy is not threatened by China's lower wages and cheaper goods, saying the two nations are partners, not rivals. On a two-day trip that ended Saturday, Wen went before Mexico's Senate to say the countries "are not in any way rivals or competitors." Almost every Mexican industry, from traditional handicrafts to assembly-for-export plants, has complained about an influx of low-priced Chinese goods and jobs lost to lower wages in China.

Third radical Saudi cleric renounces militancy

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- A jailed Muslim cleric renounced his calls for Islamic militants to attack non-Muslims during an interview aired on state-run TV Saturday, the third major Saudi clergyman to recant in less than a month. Ahmad al-Khalidi urged militants to "lay down their arms, reintegrate into society, return to their brothers because they are not our enemies and we are not their enemies." Al-Khalidi was one of three radical clerics who publicly praised Islamic militants believed linked to the May 11 attacks on Western residential compounds in Riyadh.

Queen leaves hospital after knee, skin surgery

LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth II left a London hospital Saturday, a day after she underwent successful knee surgery and had benign skin lesions removed from her face. The 77-year-old queen, walking with a cane, left the private King Edward VII Hospital around 10 a.m. A mark was visible above her left eyebrow. Buckingham Palace has said the arthroscopic surgery that removed torn cartilage from her left knee took about an hour and a quarter Friday. Doctors also removed benign skin lesions from her face while she was under anesthetic, Buckingham Palace said. The palace said the monarch, who had similar surgery on her right knee in January, should be fully active within a few weeks.

Pavarotti marries longtime partner Mantovani

MODENA, Italy -- Luciano Pavarotti married his longtime partner and producer Nicoletta Mantovani on Saturday in a song-filled, celebrity-studded ceremony held in the main theater of the tenor's hometown. Hundreds of fans gathered outside Modena's Teatro Comunale to watch the bride, dressed in a rose-colored Armani gown and toting a bouquet of pink roses, arrive for the nuptials with her father. Pavarotti, 68 and Mantovani, 34, have been living together since 1996, when their love story took gossip columns by storm. Mantovani had worked for Pavarotti during summers when she was a university student, and she now produces his Pavarotti & Friends concerts as well as other events.

Azerbaijan has seven-day mourning for ex-leader

BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Lighting candles and laying pink carnations on the steps of his office, mourners grieved Saturday for former Azerbaijani President Geidar Aliev, the one-time communist stalwart who stifled dissent and realigned his predominantly Muslim country closer to the United States. The 80-year-old leader's death Friday at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio puts the focus now on his son and successor amid questions whether he has the stature to carry on his father's legacy in this former Soviet republic of 8 million. Television channels replaced their normal programming with documentaries on the leader known as "Grandpa" and with somber classical music -- a Soviet-era tradition marking a leader's death.

Japanese sex party trial ends in China

BEIJING -- The trial of 14 people accused of organizing a sex party for hundreds of Japanese tourists that caused outrage in China ended Saturday, but no verdict was announced, a court official said. According to Chinese news reports, about 400 Japanese men and as many as 500 Chinese hostesses had sex at the hotel over a three-day period that ended on Sept. 18. That was the anniversary of a Japanese attack on a city in China's northeast in 1931 that many Chinese regard as the start of Japan's World War II invasion and occupation.

-- From wire reports