Baghdad  - A suicide bomber Thursday killed at least 15 people and wounded 13 in the northern Iraqi province of Diyala, according to a security source.

The source told the Voices of Iraq news agency that the bomber blew himself up inside a crowded restaurant in Khanaqin town.

"There are seven people severely wounded and more than 10 stores have been severely damaged, as have cars parked near the blast," the source added.

Bogota  - Leftist Colombian rebels on Thursday released a former legislator who was taken hostage in 2002, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed.

Sigifredo Lopez, a former regional legislator in the Valle del Cauca province who was kidnapped on April 11, 2002, was the last politician held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The rebels now hold hostage only police and military officers.

Rome  - Father Eberhard von Gemmingen is not just the editor- in-chief of the German department of Vatican Radio - he is also one of the first people to interview the then newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005.

The man who has emerged among critics of the way the Vatican has been handling the whole affair involving the pardoning of Holocaust- denier Richard Williamson is, first and foremost, a pastor.

Mexico City - Mexican authorities arrested the main link between the Sinaloa Drug Cartel and its suppliers in Colombia, along with eight other alleged drug traffickers, police said Wednesday.

Geronimo Gamez Garcia allegedly travelled often to Panama and Colombia to negotiate drug prices and organize deliveries. Cocaine was then taken to Mexico through the country's border with Guatemala.

Frankfurt  - Wanted Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim is long dead, Germany's ZDF television channel reported Wednesday, citing information it discovered together with the New York Times.

The former concentration camp doctor died of cancer in the Egyptian capital Cairo on August 10, 1992, research by the two media outlets showed.

Heim, known as Dr Death, was thought to have been living in South America.