Defending champion Carlos Sainz has vowed to show respect and modesty as he sets about his hunt for a second triumph in the grueling 13-stage Dakar Rally which starts on Saturday.

The 48-year-old Spaniard, the world rally champion in 1990 and 1992 who converted to cross country rallying in 2005, led last year's Dakar from the fifth stage to finish ahead of Volkswagen teammates, and chief rivals, Nasser al-Attiyah and Mark Miller.

Large amounts of rice noodles made with rotten grain and potentially carcinogenic additives are being sold in south China, state press said Friday, in the country's latest food safety scare.

Up to 50 factories in south China's Dongguan city near Hong Kong are producing about 500,000 kilograms (1.1 million pounds) of tainted rice noodles a day using stale and moldy grain, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

Israeli former president Moshe Katsav faces at least eight years in prison after he was convicted Thursday of two counts of rape for assaulting a former employee, a Tel Aviv court said.

The verdict, which also found Katsav guilty of sexually harassing a second employee, caps a four-year process that saw the former president resign his post and spurn a plea deal that would have cleared him of the rape charges.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday bypassed Congress to name the first U.S. ambassador to Syria in nearly six years, part of his Middle East engagement drive criticized by Republican opponents.

Obama took the controversial step of forcing through the appointments of Ambassador Robert Ford and five other officials while the Senate -- which normally needs to confirm nominations -- was out of session.

Bobby Farrell, singer and dancer with 1970's disco group Boney M, died early Thursday in a hotel room in Saint Petersburg, where he had been performing, city officials said. He was 61.

The Saint Petersburg investigative committee of prosecutors said the Aruba-born Dutch singer was found dead in his bed by a staffer at the city's Ambassador hotel.

Republican Florida lawmaker Ileana Ros-Lehtinen criticized U.S. President Barack Obama's move to appoint an ambassador to Damascus, accusing him of offering concessions to a country that is "destabilizing" Lebanon.

"During the past two years, Syria has continued to sponsor violent extremism and pursue dangerous weapons programs, and has also supplied long-range missiles to Hizbullah and reasserted its destabilizing influence in Lebanon at the expense of that nation's sovereignty," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement after Obama bypassed Congress to name Robert Ford as ambassador.

Two U.S. companies this year broke new ground by winning regulatory approval to start the first experiments using embryonic stem cells on humans suffering from spinal cord injury and blindness.

The potent but hotly debated cells can transform into nearly any cell in the human body, opening a path toward eliminating such ills as Parkinson's disease, paralysis, diabetes, heart disease, and maybe even the ravages of aging.

Pope Benedict XVI is set to publish a decree on Thursday to fight money-laundering in the Vatican, three months after an investigation was launched into two senior figures at the Vatican bank.

Benedict's 'Moto Proprio' document, which will be published at noon (1100 GMT), concerns "the prevention and opposition to illegal financial activity," according to a Holy See press release.

With its religious retreats for meditation and yoga, India has long been sought out by Western visitors eager to escape the rat race and return home better prepared to face life's challenges.

Big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, however, are becoming anything but havens of spiritual calm and inner peace for ordinary Indians, as the country's economy grows and more people leave the rural heartlands in search of prosperity.

The Swiss franc strengthened on Thursday to new highs against the U.S. dollar, Euro and the British Pound, as investors turned to the refuge currency amid weakness in other industrialized economies.

The euro slumped below the barrier of 1.24 francs in early morning trade, trading at just 1.2396 francs.