World News
March 24, 2008WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush pledged Monday to ensure "an outcome that will merit the sacrifice" of those who have died in Iraq, offering both sympathy and resolve as the U.S. death toll in the five-year war hit 4,000.
"One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, 'Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve because they laid the foundation for peace for generations to come'," Bush said at the State Department after a two-hour briefing on U.S. diplomatic strategy around the world.
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military blamed Iranian-backed Shiite militia factions on Monday for a spate of rocket attacks that struck the Green Zone and surrounding areas, a day after the overall U.S. death toll in the five-year conflict rose to 4,000.
The White House called the grim milestone "a sober moment" and said President George W. Bush spends time every day thinking about those who have lost their lives in battle.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A longtime loyalist of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was elected Pakistan's new prime minister Monday and immediately freed all those judges detained by President Pervez Musharraf.
The release of the judges was a powerful symbol of Musharraf's slipping authority since Bhutto's party swept parliamentary elections last month.
ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece - The head of Beijing's Olympic committee had just started his speech. The high priestesses in flowing robes were waiting to start the ancient ceremony to kindle the Olympic flame.
Suddenly, a protester evaded tight security, ran behind Beijing Olympic chief Liu Qi, and held up a black banner showing the Olympic rings as handcuffs. Liu stopped briefly, then continued, while uniformed Greek police dragged the protester away.
ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece - IOC president Jacques Rogge said Monday he is engaged in "silent diplomacy" with China on Tibet and other human rights issues in advance of the Beijing Olympics.
Rogge gave his most extensive public comments on China's political situation in an interview with The Associated Press in Ancient Olympia, where he was attending the flame-lighting ceremony for the Beijing Games.
BEIJING - Clashes between rioters and authorities in China's western Sichuan province left one policeman dead and "several others" injured Monday, state media said, casting doubt on assurances by Chinese leaders that restive Tibetan areas had been brought under control.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported late Monday that "a group of perpetrators" had attacked armed policemen with knives and stones at 4:30 p.m. in Garze prefecture, according to local authorities. The officer, identified as Wang Guochuan, was killed instantly while several other policemen were wounded in what Xinhua characterized as "riots."
DETROIT - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star and Detroit's youngest elected leader, was charged Monday with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also charged the popular yet polarizing 37-year-old mayor with obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.
JERUSALEM - Israel won't remove the hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks it has built in the West Bank but it will look at ways to make travel easier for the Palestinians living there, the Israeli defence minister said Monday.
Visiting a crossing between the southern West Bank and Israel, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the checkpoints block militants and are vital to Israel's security.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The latest Arab initiative to restore Palestinian unity unravelled Monday amid fresh recriminations between the rival Fatah and Hamas movements.
The reconciliation talks sponsored by Yemen also offered a reminder that moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas doesn't run a tight ship. His envoy to Yemen signed a declaration with Hamas without first getting approval from the boss.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Government troops and Tamil rebels fought scattered battles across northern Sri Lanka over two days, leaving 30 rebel fighters and four soldiers dead, the military said Monday.
Fighting between the two sides has escalated since the government pulled out of a long-ignored ceasefire with the rebels in January. The government promised swift victory over the Tamil Tigers, but many observers say the rebels are putting up far more resistance than the government expected.
BELGRADE, Serbia - Nine years after NATO began bombing Serbia to stop a bloody crackdown in Kosovo, Belgrade has proposed partitioning the newly independent nation along ethnic lines.
The proposal to divide Kosovo between its ethnic Albanian majority and minority Serbs was published in Belgrade newspapers Monday, the anniversary of NATO's 78-day air war to end a bloody 1999 Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's president has asked North Korea to consider sending home prisoners of war and captured civilians in return for receiving humanitarian aid from Seoul.
President Lee Myung-bak said in an interview published Monday that he wouldn't seek to link food and fertilizer aid to international efforts to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
IOWA CITY, Iowa - A woman and her four children were found dead in their home Monday morning, and authorities were searching for the woman's husband.
Dispatchers got a call at 6:31 a.m. saying officers needed to get to the address immediately. The caller then hung up, a police department statement said.
CAIRO, Egypt - Clashes have been breaking out among Egyptians waiting in long lines for subsidized bread and the president has ordered the army to start baking more to contain a political crisis.
The turmoil in the world's most populous Arab country, a top U.S. ally, is a stark sign of how rising world food prices are roiling poorer countries.
THIMPHU, Bhutan - A political party seen as the more royalist of two groups seeking power swept the first parliamentary elections ever held in this secluded Himalayan kingdom, Bhutan's election commissioner said Monday.
The Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party took 44 of the 47 seats in the new parliament, Election Commissioner Kunzang Wangdi said. The People's Democratic Party won the remaining three seats.
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is urging China to consider a different Tibet policy and to start talks with the Dalai Lama.
Rice says a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is needed to solve Tibetans' grievances. She calls the Dalai Lama a person of authoritative moral stature for people around the world.
KATMANDU, Nepal - Police in Nepal's capital arrested about 475 Tibetan refugees, monks and their supporters Monday as they gathered to protest a crackdown on Tibetans in neighbouring China, the UN said.
Chanting "China, stop killings in Tibet. UN, we want justice," protesters were marching toward the UN offices in Katmandu when police stopped them about 100 metres away, beat them with bamboo sticks and snatched their banners.
ANKARA, Turkey - Police broke up a protest Monday by hundreds of demonstrators in a fifth straight day of clashes with Kurds in southeastern Turkey.
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in Yuksekova, in Hakkari province, a day after a demonstrator was shot to death in the eastern city, said the private Dogan news agency.
