World News

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran hinted Tuesday that its response to a Western incentive package aimed at persuading it to roll back its nuclear program would include constructive ideas that it hopes will open the way for negotiations.

JERUSALEM - Police raided the official residence of Israeli President Moshe Katsav as part of a sexual harassment investigation, seizing computers and documents, officials said Tuesday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Defendants in the second Saddam Hussein trial insisted on Tuesday that Iraq's military was attacking Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels only when it launched the Anfal campaign in the 1980s in which tens of thousands of Kurds were killed.

AP Correspondent Robert H. Reid covers Iraq events from Baghdad. AP Correspondent Rebecca Santana is embedded with the First Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division. Antonio Castaneda is embedded with the U.S. Marines, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Regiment.

AP correspondents are in Lebanon and Israel covering the fighting and now the cease-fire. Here, in a combined weblog, they convey the impressions and challenges of their assignments.

MOSCOW - A Russian passenger jet with 170 people aboard crashed in Ukraine on Tuesday after sending a distress signal, emergency officials said. The Interfax news agency, citing the Russian emergencies ministry, said 30 bodies had been found.

KIEV (Reuters) - An airliner flying from southern Russia to the country's second city of St Petersburg with at least 154 people on board crashed on Tuesday in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry said.

ROME (AFP) - Twenty-one Italians and a few other foreign tourists have been abducted in southeastern Niger near the border with Chad, the Italian foreign ministry has said.

LONDON - Eleven people charged with plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners were brought to court Tuesday under heavy security, and the first three to appear were ordered held until next month.

ROME (Reuters) - Twenty-one Italian tourists believed to have been kidnapped on the border between Niger and Chad were found on Tuesday, the Italian foreign ministry said.

ISABELA, Puerto Rico - The world's oldest man celebrated his 115th birthday Monday, offering advice on healthy living at a party where he was serenaded by a well-known Puerto Rican singer.

MEXICO CITY - Three Mexican fishermen who claim they spent nine months adrift in the Pacific Ocean finally reached dry land when the fishing boat that rescued them arrived at a remote island chain thousands of miles from their homeland.

QUITO, Ecuador - Thousands of villagers whose homes were destroyed by a volcanic eruption in Ecuador are in urgent need of food and other relief supplies, officials said Monday.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The leader of a major gang on Monday defied Haitian President Rene Preval's orders to disarm, saying his followers would give up their weapons only if U.N. peacekeepers stop conducting raids in the slums.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, whose socialist government was a major antagonist of the United States in the 1980s, topped all presidential contenders in a poll released Monday.

ROME (Reuters) - Twenty-one Italian tourists believed to have been kidnapped on the border between Niger and Chad were found on Tuesday, the Italian foreign ministry said.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - The European Union rushed more peacekeepers to Congo on Tuesday as the U.N. and foreign leaders struggled to end fighting between soldiers loyal to President Joseph Kabila and supporters of his election rival.

HARARE (AFP) - Shoppers and commuters in Zimbabwe have been left out of pocket as a severe lack of low denomination banknotes blighted the first day of a new currency.

KINSHASA, Congo - Heavy gunfire erupted Tuesday morning around the home of Congo's top presidential challenger, a day after fighters trapped diplomats who had to be evacuated by U.N. peacekeepers.

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt's national rail chief has been sacked over a train crash that left 58 people dead, officials said, as the press lashed out at the government over the latest transport disaster.

BOMBAY, India - Police killed a Pakistani and arrested another in a shootout Tuesday that authorities said foiled a terrorist attack in India's financial capital a month after a series of train bombings that left more than 200 people dead.

TAWANG, India (Reuters) - At first sight, a 400-year-old Buddhist monastery, tucked deep in the Himalayas in a remote corner of India's northeast, hardly seems like a highly coveted piece of real estate.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Jordan's King Abdullah II has flown to Pakistan to discuss the situation in the Middle East following the conflict between Israel and the Shiite militia Hezbollah.

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan warplanes have bombed a suspected Tamil Tiger munitions dump as a ship prepared to sail with food for tens of thousands cut off by fighting in the besieged Jaffna peninsula.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Shenzhen company has been fined for sending bulk junk email in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in China where more than 50 billion spam messages are received a year, state media said on Tuesday.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The man often regarded as the front-runner in the race to head Canada's opposition Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, proposed on Monday a modified carbon tax to try to limit climate change.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's overall inflation came in unexpectedly high in July despite a cut in the federal sales tax, but core inflation was exactly as forecast and unlikely to prompt the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates.

TORONTO (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. said on Monday it will make the latest version of its legendary Chevrolet Camaro muscle car at its major Canadian plant just outside Toronto, a decision that will save thousands of jobs at the facility.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has declared an all-out war on the National Hockey League (NHL), accusing the North Americans of stealing its best players.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian lumber industry has pledged "substantial support" for a softwood lumber agreement with the United States, enough for the pact to proceed to Parliament, Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, said on Monday.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Three Mexicans who survived an epic voyage across the Pacific Ocean in a small fishing boat have arrived in the Marshall Islands, setting foot on land for the first time in more than nine months.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's Coles Myer has said it would not be pressured into accepting a "highly conditional" takeover bid from private equity funds potentially worth 15 billion dollars (11.25 billion US).

SYDNEY (AFP) - A bomb scare on board a passenger airliner from China to Australia forced the pilot to abort the trip, an Australian television network reported.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia has warned of possible attacks against international hotels in Pakistan, saying it had received recent credible reports that militants are planning attacks against a range of targets.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A 51-year-old university employee took his place on the ornately carved wooden throne of New Zealand's Maori monarch Monday, hours before his mother, the late queen, was buried atop a sacred mountain.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - The Dalai Lama met with worshippers in Mongolia on Tuesday, and the Chinese Embassy said it had no plans to protest his visit following assurances he wouldn't take part in political activities.

CARACAS, Venezuela - The presidential campaign of comedian Benjamin Rausseo seemed like just another joke from a funnyman wildly popular for taking aim at everything from Venezuelans' sexual affairs and public drunkenness to gaffes by leading politicians.

LONDON - Eleven people charged with plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners were brought to court Tuesday under heavy security, and the first three to appear were ordered held until next month.

MOSCOW - A Russian passenger jet with 170 people aboard crashed in Ukraine on Tuesday after sending a distress signal, emergency officials said. The Interfax news agency, citing the Russian emergencies ministry, said 30 bodies had been found.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A Hezbollah Cabinet minister on Tuesday said the government may attempt to break the Israeli naval and air blockade of Lebanon by calling on ships and aircraft to travel to Lebanese ports without prior Israeli approval.