World News

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Sporadic clashes erupted Monday between Lebanese troops and Islamic militants at a Palestinian refugee camp, injuring one soldier, security officials said.

JERUSALEM - Israel's Labor Party voted for a new leader Monday, narrowing the field to two men who have pledged to bring down Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government.

BAGHDAD - The United States and Iran broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security. The American envoy said there was broad policy agreement, but that Iran must stop arming and financing militants who are attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces.

As of Monday, May 28, 2007, at least 3,452 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,809 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

QUARGHULI, Iraq - The shrine is just some sheets of plywood and a couple of two-by-fours. The carpenter who lovingly built it, Sgt. Curtis Dorr, wishes it could be grander — perhaps some pieces of felt to hide the knotholes or some trim to make it a more fitting tribute for a Memorial Day ceremony.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Shanghai gang of nine who helped break each others' arms and then jumped off building sites to win compensation were jailed for extorting 100,000 yuan ($13,000) from their bosses, local media said on Tuesday.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish police said Monday it was impossible to tell whether a handgun recovered late last year from the bottom of a lake can be linked to the investigation of the 1986 murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme because it was too damaged.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Compared with the $27 million (13.6 million pounds) Creation Museum that just opened its doors in Kentucky, Canada's first museum dedicated to explaining geology, evolution and paleontology in biblical terms is a decidedly more modest affair.

MOSCOW - President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Kosovo and other international issues by telephone Monday ahead of a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations next week.

OXFORD (AFP) - Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited the historic University of Oxford on Monday during their three-day tour of Britain.

MEXICO CITY - Miss USA Rachel Smith made the top 10 Monday night in her bid to reign as Miss Universe 2007.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan police fired tear gas and plastic bullets Monday into a crowd of thousands protesting a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a television station critical of his leftist government off the air.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Just weeks after Pope Benedict XVI denounced government-backed contraception in a visit to Brazil, the president unveiled a program Monday to provide cheap birth control pills at 10,000 drug stores across the country.

HAVANA - The man who was Meyer Lansky's driver and bodyguard during the Mafia's heyday in pre-Revolutionary Cuba died earlier this year, a curious footnote in a communist-run country whose past as a gambling mecca for vacationing Americans is all but forgotten.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A TV cameraman jailed at Guantanamo Bay appealed for the release of a BBC journalist kidnapped in Gaza, saying his own detention by the U.S. military "is not a lesson that Muslims should copy."

BEIJING - China's government reacted angrily Monday in its first public comments on a U.S. Defense Department report on communist state's military buildup, accusing the Pentagon of fanning baseless fears of a Chinese threat.

HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) - France has proposed opening a humanitarian corridor through Chad to bring relief to victims of the Darfur conflict, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said here late Monday.

WARRI, Nigeria - Hostage takers released a Polish worker seized in Nigeria's restive southern oil region, officials and ethnic leaders said Monday.

NAIROBI, Kenya - A shootout between suspected robbers and police officers in the Kenyan capital left six people dead, including a 10-year-old boy, police said Monday.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Umaru Yar'Adua takes office as president of Nigeria on Tuesday, inheriting a catalogue of crises compounded by doubts over his own legitimacy after a flawed election.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese dailies Tuesday said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's insistence on sticking by a scandal-tainted minister was partly responsible for his suicide, and would cost him a political price.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - The lead US negotiator in a landmark deal to allow civilian nuclear technology sales to India arrives in New Delhi this week to try and resolve nagging differences over the pact, officials said Monday.

BEIJING - China's government reacted angrily Monday in its first public comments on a U.S. Defense Department report on communist state's military buildup, accusing the Pentagon of fanning baseless fears of a Chinese threat.

SEOUL (Reuters) - The two Koreas will try to mend relations at cabinet-level talks on Tuesday, but the North's refusal to act on a nuclear disarmament deal could lead Seoul to delay rice aid promised to its impoverished neighbor.

TOKYO - A scandal-tainted Cabinet member who headed Japan's powerful agriculture ministry hanged himself just hours before he faced questioning Monday over alleged bookkeeping fraud.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada declined on Monday to take sides in a dispute among Group of Eight members over climate change, saying merely it wanted to build consensus on the question of how to fight global warming.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A retired Canadian police officer testified at any inquiry on Monday that he was not given a warning about a possible bomb threat to Air India Flight 182, just days before the 1985 explosion killed 329 people.

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) - Global warming has made life more dangerous for Inuit hunters in the Arctic as they increasingly fall to their deaths through thinning ice sheets while pursuing seals and polar bears.

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Quebec's Finance Minister said on Monday she will do everything possible to resolve a budget impasse that risks bringing down the minority Liberal government and forcing a provincial election in July.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. may contract out heavy repair work on its tracks if a strike by maintenance workers lasts into the summer, the railroad's chief executive said on Monday.

CANBERRA (AFP) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become the first Japanese leader to address Australia's parliament when he visits in September, his Australian counterpart John Howard said Monday.

PERTH, Australia - A pair of 2-year-olds who wandered out of a vacation home and into the Australian wilderness were found Monday — scratched and dirty but unhurt — after spending more than 24 hours outdoors.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's conservative prime minister, John Howard, not only faces defeat at elections later this year but both he and heir apparent Peter Costello could lose their seats in parliament, a new poll analysis found on Monday.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian hotel catering for homosexuals has won the right to ban heterosexuals from its bars so as to provide a safe and comfortable venue for gay men.

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australia on Sunday marked 40 years since a historic referendum granted Aborigines citizenship, but celebrations were muted by stark reminders of the hardships facing the continent's original inhabitants.

BAGHDAD - The United States and Iran broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security. The American envoy said there was broad policy agreement, but that Iran must stop arming and financing militants who are attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces.

OTTAWA (AFP) - Half of 17,000 men surveyed in April in southern Afghanistan "chillingly" said they believe the Taliban will triumph against NATO forces, a think tank said in a report Monday.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan police fired tear gas and plastic bullets Monday into a crowd of thousands protesting a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a television station critical of his leftist government off the air.

LAGOS, Nigeria - When Olusegun Obasanjo was elected Nigeria's president in 1999, Nigerians hoped long years of military misrule were behind them and stable democracy was ahead.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Just weeks after Pope Benedict XVI denounced government-backed contraception in a visit to Brazil, the president unveiled a program Monday to provide cheap birth control pills at 10,000 drug stores across the country.