Syrian authorities have found the bodies of U.S. journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik in the Baba Amr district of powder keg Homs Thursday after rebels retreated, the foreign ministry said.

"Authorities this morning located the bodies of the two journalists, American Marie Colvin and Frenchman Remi Ochlik, in a great humanitarian effort," a source at the ministry said quoted by SANA news agency. The two had been "buried in the region which was controlled by armed terrorist groups".

Russia on Thursday accused the United States of trying to influence its election process by funding opposition groups in advance of Vladimir Putin's expected return to the Kremlin in the weekend poll.

The charges came as officials braced for mass protests that have been called for the day after Sunday's election in which the Russian strongman is expected to breeze his way past four weak rivals to a third presidential term.

Some cancer drugs used to treat patients with leukemia may also help stop the Ebola virus and give the body time to control the infection before it turns deadly, US researchers said on Wednesday.

The much-feared Ebola virus emerged in Africa in the 1970s and can incite a hemorrhagic fever which causes a person to bleed to death in up to 90 percent of cases.

Despite a new crackdown on Internet gambling this week, the U.S. government appears to be easing its stand on many forms of online betting, prompting states to swing into action to tap a new revenue source.

The turnabout by Washington came quietly in December when the Justice Department released an opinion stating that only sports betting should be prohibited under a 1961 federal law known as the Wire Act.

Two NATO troops were killed Thursday when an Afghan soldier and a civilian turned their weapons against them in southern Afghanistan, the coalition military said.

The civilian was a literacy teacher who grabbed a weapon from a soldier and opened fire in a military outpost in troubled Kandahar province, Zhary district chief Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi told Agence France Presse.

An Australian man indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury for plotting to export components for missiles, drones and torpedoes to Iran said Thursday he had no idea his actions were in breach of an embargo.

David Levick and his Sydney-based company ICM Components were each charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Arms Export Control Act, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

The new international mediator for Syria, former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan, said Wednesday he hopes to be in Damascus soon with a "clear" message that the killing must end.

But he also demanded that the divided international community unite behind his mission as a special envoy for the United Nations and Arab League.

A U.S. woman who burned down a 3,500-year-old tree while doing drugs inside a hollow of the bald cypress faces drug charges after methamphetamines were found at her house, officials said.

Sara Barnes, 26, was detained on Tuesday on suspicion of having burned down "The Senator," as the 36-meter tree in central Florida -- billed as the world's fifth oldest -- was known.

Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom on Thursday accused U.S. authorities of mounting a "misleading and malicious" case against him, saying there was no way they could win a landmark online piracy action.

Free on bail in New Zealand after winning a legal fight with prosecutors who wanted to keep him behind bars after his January 20 arrest, a defiant Dotcom was confident of beating charges brought by the U.S. Justice Department and FBI.

A coalition of European and U.S. consumer advocacy groups made a last-ditch appeal to Internet search and advertising giant Google on Wednesday to delay changes to its privacy policies.

In a joint letter to Google chief executive Larry Page, the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) urged Google to delay implementation of the changes which are scheduled to take effect from Thursday.