From turmoil in Mali to a green gladiator in Iran, here are five stories you shouldn't miss from the past week in global news:

Plan for military intervention in Mali stalls

U.S. gingerly expands security role in Central America

Slaying of Afghan polio program worker raises questions

European nations criticize Israel over E-1 settlement plan

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa's beloved former president, Nelson Mandela, was hospitalized in a Pretoria military hospital Saturday for tests.

The 94-year-old Mandela, his nation's first black president, has had several health scares in recent years that sparked rumors of his death. But this time, the office of President Jacob Zuma reassured South Africans in a statement that there was no cause for alarm for the man they know affectionately as Madiba.

"Former President Mandela will receive medical attention from time to time which is consistent with his age. President Zuma assures all that Madiba is doing well and there is no cause for alarm," the statement said.

TIMELINE:  The life of Nelson Mandela

The government offered no details of the tests.

Mandela, who is increasingly frail, has moved to the rural village of Qunu in the province of Eastern Cape, not far from his birthplace. He has retired from public life and plays no role in politics, though he remains an...

Karzai did not directly accuse the Pakistani government. He told reporters at the presidential palace that he intended to raise the issue with Pakistan.

Afghan officials often accuse Pakistan of meddling in Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban and attempting to undercut the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. The Afghan intelligence chief, Asadullah Khalid, is a fierce critic of Pakistan.

[Updated 8:48 a.m. Dec. 8: Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry issued a short statement Saturday brushing aside any suggestion of involvement by Pakistan’s intelligence community in the attack.

"Before leveling charges, the Afghan government would do well if they shared information or evidence with the government of Pakistan that they may have with regard to the...

When he was reelected president of Indonesia three years ago, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono vowed to combat corruption. Now a landmark corruption investigation threatens to tarnish his own political party, as his former presidential spokesman steps down over allegations of graft.

Youth and Sports Minister Andi Alfian Mallarangeng stepped down Friday after being named a suspect in an investigation centering on the construction of a $122-million sports complex in West Java, according to news reports.

He was the first sitting Cabinet member to be targeted in the inquiry and the first ever named by the Corruption Eradication Commission, which was launched nearly a decade ago.

Corruption investigators have sought to ban the minister from traveling abroad. Though Mallarangeng told reporters he was innocent and was resigning only to prevent the case from getting in the way of government business, the news is nonetheless an embarrassment for Yudhoyono, who used to rely on Mallarangeng as his...

A U.S. Supreme Court decision to review the constitutionality of laws restricting marriage to heterosexual couples has raised hopes among gays and lesbians in the United States that their right to marry might soon be legally recognized, allowing them to join a widening global community of same-sex couples.

The high court decided Friday that it would take up challenges to California’s 2008 state constitutional amendment overturning a short-lived right for gays to marry, as well as rulings in Massachusetts, New York and California that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act violates gay Americans’ right to equal protection under the law. That federal statute, known as DOMA,  denies even legally married same-sex partners access to federal benefits like government health insurance and surviving-spouse pensions.

Legal recognition and protection of gay marriage exists in much of the developed world, but in the United States the right of marriage is defined on a state-by-state basis....

Workers are getting a smaller piece of the pie in booming China and economically stressed Europe alike, the United Nations labor agency said Friday, chalking up the trend to technological strides, globalization and the weakening muscle of labor unions.

Worldwide, average wages grew 1.2% last year, the International Labor Organization said in a newly released report based on available data. But the bulk of that growth was powered by China. If the Asian powerhouse is counted out, wages barely budged last year, damped by the economic crisis.

In developed countries such as Britain and the United States, wages in 2011 suffered their second dip in four years. The disappointing picture for workers in developed countries seems to be persisting, as “wages are growing marginally, if at all, in 2012,” the U.N. agency report says.

Worker pay also appeared to have dropped in the Middle East, but the organization cautioned that some estimates from the region were still tentative. Nearby...

CAIRO -- Tens of thousands of Egyptians marched to the presidential palace Friday demanding that President Mohamed Morsi step down.

Many protesters no longer asked for Morsi to rescind a decree that expanded his powers and postpone a referendum scheduled Dec. 15 on a proposed charter written by an Islamist-dominated assembly.  

Protesters said they were upset by Morsi's televised address Thursday, during which he offered a "national dialog" with opposition leaders but remained adamant about the referendum and kept his unpopular decree in place.

At least six people have died and hundreds have been injured in clashes that began Wednesday between Islamist supporters of Morsi and protesters from mainly secular opposition movements.

While rescuers counted up hundreds more dead from a typhoon that battered the southern Philippines, forecasters warned that the storm was regaining strength as it moved northward near the coast of Luzon island.

More than 500 people are reported dead and hundreds more remain missing after Typhoon Bopha slammed into the archipelago this week. The storm weakened after it struck the south, but has rebounded as it veers northward, now as strong as a Category 4 hurricane.

As of late Friday in the Philippines, its winds were estimated as high as 125 mph, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Weather forecasters said the storm was expected to stay offshore from the northern Philippines, but cautioned that the reenergized storm could pummel western Luzon with powerful winds and heavy rain.

PHOTOS: Typhoon Bopha hammers Phillipines

"It's had more lives than a cat," said Pat Boyle, press officer for the British weather service. "It has been a very...

KABUL, Afghanistan – The director of Afghanistan’s spy agency was improving Friday after treatment for wounds he suffered when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device a day earlier at a Directorate of National Security guest house in the capital, officials said.

"By God the great, the health condition of Asadullah Khalid . . . is acceptable and is getting better,’’ the Directorate of National Security said in a statement.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, which occurred as Khalid, 43, was greeting a visitor to the guest house in an upscale neighborhood of Kabul. The spy agency said the bomber, who was reportedly killed in the blast, had hidden the bomb in his underwear.

The agency said the attacker posed as a peace envoy from the Taliban. The Taliban used a similar tactic in September 2011, when a suicide bomber with explosives hidden in his turban killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani and four other members of the...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — It’s a world of likes, apps and status updates, so it was bound to happen: The Pakistani Taliban now has its own Facebook page.

The Pakistani insurgent group’s spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, confirmed that it had put a page called Umar Media TTP on the social media website. TTP is the acronym for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the group’s name in Urdu.

Formed in 2007, the Pakistani Taliban is an amalgam of factions united by the goal of toppling the current government and imposing sharia, or Islamic law. The Pakistani Taliban maintains links with Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and other Pakistani militant groups entrenched in their country’s tribal belt.

Authorities in Islamabad have accused the Pakistani Taliban of engineering some of the country’s worst terrorist strikes, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. The group also claimed responsibility for the Oct. 9 assassination attempt on...

LONDON -- A nurse who took a hoax call from two Australian disc jockeys asking about the condition of Kate Middleton, Prince William’s pregnant wife, has been found dead, the hospital where the woman worked confirmed Friday.

British news reports, citing unnamed sources, said Jacintha Saldanha’s death was a suspected suicide. Scotland Yard said that the death was being treated "as unexplained."

Saldanha was a nurse at King Edward VII Hospital in London, the private facility where Middleton, who is the duchess of Cambridge, was taken  this week for treatment for acute morning sickness, which prompted the royal family to announce her pregnancy.

On Tuesday, two Australian DJs speaking in fake British accents and posing as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, telephoned the hospital asking to speak to Middleton and for an update on her condition. A duped nurse told the “royal” callers that the duchess was asleep, had been rehydrated and was no longer vomiting.

The...