In the World

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Fewer reporters were killed worldwide in 2010 than in the previous year, but media advocacy groups warned Thursday that while the number slain in war zones had fallen, criminals and traffickers had become a greater threat.

Fifty-seven reporters were killed around the world this year, the Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said in its annual report, down 25 percent from 2009, when 76 journalists were killed in connection with their jobs.

Last year's record number of deaths was high because of a massacre in the Philippines that saw more than two dozen journalists and their staff gunned down.

A separate report Thursday from the Brussels-based International Federation for Journalists said 94 journalist and other media personnel were killed in 2010, down from 139 in 2009. The federation count includes other employees of media organizations such as drivers, camera crews, and producers. - AP

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Protests intensified in Bolivia on Thursday against a sharp increase in fuel prices imposed by President Evo Morales' government. Thousands of demonstrators marched in La Paz and other cities, calling for the price increases to be repealed. Some demanded Morales' resignation.

The higher prices were announced suddenly on Sunday, and it has been the most unpopular measure of Morales' five-year presidency. It led to an immediate 73 percent jump in gasoline prices and an 83 percent rise in prices for diesel - and also prompted rapid increases in transport and food prices.

Taxi drivers held a strike that largely paralyzed La Paz on Thursday, and protests were also held in the cities of Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and Oruro. Fuel prices had been frozen for six years, but the government said it could no longer subsidize them. - AP

BRASILIA, Brazil - President-elect Dilma Rousseff has invited to her inauguration 11 women with whom she shared a prison cell in the early 1970s during Brazil's military regime. Rousseff spokeswoman Adelina Lapa said Thursday that the women were militants fighting the dictatorship, as Rousseff was.

Lapa said that all 11 had accepted the invitation for the Saturday inauguration. Rousseff joined the anti-dictatorship Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard at the age of 19. For three years she helped lead the organization, instructed comrades on Marxist theory, and wrote for an underground newspaper.

Rousseff was captured in 1970 and tossed into Sao Paulo's Tiradentes prison, where she was tortured. She was released in 1973. - AP

At least 39 people have died of torture in prisons of authoritarian Uzbekistan this year amid a spiraling crackdown on religious groups and government critics, a respected rights group said Thursday. The Independent Human Rights Defenders Group said the figure was based on information from the victims' families and former inmates. In 2009, the group registered 20 prison deaths by torture.