Austria
BREGENZ — Police arrested German businessman Dieter Holzer, a former lobbyist for French oil company Elf Aquitaine, wanted in France for suspected involvement in a bribery scandal dogging former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, officials said.
Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO — Thousands of police swarmed into slums across Rio de Janeiro state, cracking down on the drug trade in the largely lawless zones, officials said.
SAO PAULO — Police found the bodies of six Portuguese men who had been clubbed to death after they disappeared two weeks ago in Brazil's beach-lined northeast.
Colombia
BOGOTA — Three suspected IRA members charged with training Colombian leftist rebels in bomb-making told prosecutors they were visiting Colombia to see the Amazon, write about wildlife and learn Spanish, court documents show.
Congo
KINSHASA — Congo's rival factions agreed to set Oct. 15 as the date for talks on bringing democracy to their war-divided central African nation.
KIGALI, Rwanda — An Antonov cargo plane crashed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Thursday, killing at least seven people, including two Russian pilots, U.N. officials said.
Ecuador
QUITO — An Ecuadorean congressional committee is pushing to revise bilateral accords with Colombia to help prevent illegal militias and criminals from operating along the nation's fragile border.
Fiji
SUVA — Polling places opened peacefully across Fiji's 300 islands in an election voters hope will return stability to this racially divided South Pacific nation.
Italy
MILAN — An Italian soldier is being investigated about allegations he had sex with underage girls while on U.N. peacekeeping duties in Ethiopia and Eritrea, an Italian military prosecutor said.
ROME — Some 7.2 million newly minted euro coins were loaded aboard two heavily armored trains and a tractor-trailer Friday to begin a journey to distribute the new currency throughout Italy.
Jamaica
KINGSTON — Gunmen ambushed two members of Jamaica's security forces as they left a Kingston nightclub, killing one and critically wounding the other, police said.
Lithuania
VILNIUS — The first major congress of Jews of Lithuanian origin opened Friday in Vilnius, bringing together some 300 Jews from around the world to this former Soviet republic.
Netherlands
AMSTERDAM — Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was warned that he could lose jail privileges after he gave an unauthorized interview to Fox television. Fox said Milosevic initiated the interview by phoning the station from a telephone just outside his cell at the U.N. detention unit at The Hague, where he is awaiting trial for alleged war crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999.
Nigeria
ABUJA — The United States signed an agreement to give Nigeria an $18.5 million grant to help strengthen democracy by sparking economic growth through education and agriculture initiatives.
Pakistan
ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia said it barred diplomats from seeing detained aid workers, because it feared the visits might interfere with an investigation into charges the workers had propagated Christianity.
Peru
LIMA — A Peruvian pilot and his U.S. instructor were missing after a Peruvian military plane on a joint training mission for anti-drugs surveillance flights crashed into the sea, the air force said.
Russia
MOSCOW — A Russian Proton-K rocket carrying a military satellite blasted off from a Russian launch pad at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Russian news agencies said.
MOSCOW — Divers resumed the operation to raise the Russian Kursk nuclear submarine from the floor of the Barents Sea after a halt caused by storms in the area, officials said.
Spain
MADRID — Police arrested six suspected terrorists, seizing 550 pounds of stolen explosives, detonator wiring and counterfeit license plates and in raids on Barcelona-area houses they believe were by the Basque separatist group ETA, the Spanish government said.
Ukraine
KIEV — Rows of tanks rolled and columns of soldiers marched through Kiev in a parade marking 10 years of independence for the former Soviet republic.