Japan plans to send more than 20,000 soldiers into its northern disaster zone Monday in an intensive mission to recover the bodies of those killed in last month's earthquake and tsunami.

More than 12,000 people are missing and presumed dead from the twin disasters that hit March 11. Some were likely swept out to sea, while others are buried under the mass of rubble. About 14,300 are confirmed dead.

Yemen's embattled president agreed Saturday to a proposal by Gulf Arab mediators to step down within 30 days and hand power to his deputy in exchange for immunity from prosecution, a major about-face for the autocratic leader who has ruled for 32 years.

A coalition of seven opposition parties said they also accepted the deal but with reservations. Even if the differences are overcome, those parties do not speak for all of the hundreds of thousands of protesters seeking President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ouster, and signs were already emerging that a deal on those terms would not end confrontations in the streets.

U.S. drones fired 10 missiles at a house in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border on Friday, killing at least 25 people, Pakistani intelligence officials said, while 16 security forces died in Taliban ambushes elsewhere in the frontier region.

The strike came a day after Pakistan's army chief denounced such attacks, and could further sour already deteriorating relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple Inc. about why iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting location data on users — records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to disgorge.

It's not clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information on their users. And this week's revelation that the Apple devices do wasn't even new — some security experts began warning about the issue a year ago.

Nokia Corp. reported better than expected first quarter profits Thursday despite confirming that its market share around the world dropped below 30 percent for the first time in over a decade, as the world's top cellphone maker continued to lose ground to its rivals.

Though the Finnish company said its net profit for the quarter fell euro5 million to euro344 million ($499 million) a year earlier, the markets were impressed by the news that operating profit only fell 14 percent during the period instead of the anticipated 40 percent decline.

Syrian soldiers and armed security agents in plainclothes deployed across the tense central city of Homs on Thursday, taking up positions in the area on the eve of large rallies planned by Syrian anti-government activists, eyewitnesses said.

The deployment came as the Syrian president appointed a new governor for Homs after having caved in to protesters' demands to replace its top local official earlier this month.

Two Western photojournalists, including an Oscar-nominated film director, have been killed in the besieged city of Misrata while covering battles between rebels and Libyan government forces. Two others working alongside them were wounded.

British-born Tim Hetherington, co-director of the documentary "Restrepo" about U.S. soldiers on an outpost in Afghanistan, was killed Wednesday inside the only rebel-held city in western Libya, said his U.S.-based publicist, Johanna Ramos Boyer. The city has come under weeks of relentless shelling by government troops.

Authorities may for the first time ban access to the evacuation zone around Japan's crippled nuclear plant, citing concerns Wednesday over radiation risks for residents who may be returning to check on their homes.

About 70,000-80,000 people were living in the 10 towns and villages within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which has been leaking radiation after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked its power and cooling systems.

Three army officers and three children were killed by "armed criminal gangs" around the central city of Homs, Syrian authorities announced on Tuesday.

"Armed criminal gangs who block roads and spread fear in the area, came upon General Abdo Khodr Al-Tellawi, his two children and his nephew, and killed them in cold blood," the official news agency SANA reported. The victims' bodies were "mutilated", SANA added.

The State Department has been secretly financing opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad, The Washington Post reported, citing previously undisclosed diplomatic documents provided to the newspaper by the WikiLeaks website.

One of the outfits funded by the U.S. is Barada TV, a London-based satellite channel that broadcasts anti-government news into Syria, the Post reported Sunday. Barada's chief editor, Malik al-Abdeh, is a cofounder of the Syrian exile group Movement for Justice and Development.