Afghanistan

KABUL — German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Thursday that international peacekeepers should remain in Afghanistan beyond June, but that they are stretched to the limit in Kabul and shouldn't venture beyond the Afghan capital.

Brazil

SAO PAULO — A bus taking college students home from their night courses at a university in southeastern Brazil plummeted down a 160-foot cliff, killing at least 20 people and injuring 21 others, police said Thursday. The accident occurred late Wednesday on a highway near the city of Rifaina, 280 miles north of Sao Paulo.

Canada

EDMONTON, Alberta — The head of the Canadian panel investigating the accidental U.S. bombing in Afghanistan that killed four Canadian soldiers said all the information may never be made public. Retired Gen. Maurice Baril said Wednesday that his board will release as much information as it can, but some of the material must be kept secret for security reasons.

China

BEIJING — Three North Koreans have sought asylum inside a U.S. consulate in northeastern China, the U.S. Embassy said Thursday, a day after Chinese guards dragged away a group who tried to take refuge in a nearby Japanese office. Diplomats and Chinese officials were discussing what to do with the three. Two scaled the wall of the U.S. consulate in Shenyang on Wednesday, and a third climbed over on Thursday, U.S. officials said.

India

AHMADABAD — Ignoring a 24-hour police curfew, Hindus and Muslims fought each other, looted and set fires through the night, adding nine deaths to the toll of more than 900 in western India's sectarian violence, police said Thursday.

Ireland

DUBLIN — Michael Todd Jr., a stepson of actress Elizabeth Taylor who produced the only feature film ever shot in Smell-o-Vision, died in his rural Irish mansion, friends and officials said Thursday. He was 72.

Japan

TOKYO — Leading Japanese lawmakers savored whale-meat delicacies at a government-backed blubber bash Thursday and hundreds of supporters rallied in downtown Tokyo for the resumption of commercial whaling. Fishery officials and restaurateurs joined the nearly four dozen politicians for the evening VIP tasting party, meant to bolster Japan's pro-whaling push as it now plays host to the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission.

Mexico

MEXICO CITY — President Vicente Fox praised a court decision ordering an investigation into his campaign contributions, saying the ruling was another sign of Mexico's strengthening democracy. In a statement sent to reporters Wednesday, the president's office said it would fully cooperate in the investigation. On Tuesday, Mexico's federal electoral court ordered officials to investigate allegations that Fox's presidential campaign accepted foreign funds, saying bank officials must turn over all related records.

Myanmar

YANGON — The opposition National League for Democracy said Thursday that its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, will soon visit party offices in the countryside, in the first test of her political freedom since being released from house arrest this week. Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, was released Monday after 19 months of confinement that began when she defied a government ban on her traveling outside Yangon. She has not been allowed to travel to the countryside for political work in the last 13 years.

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Pakistan

KARACHI — Nearly 300 suspected Islamic militants were arrested Thursday as U.S. and French investigators joined Pakistanis to look for possible links between al-Qaida terrorists and a Wednesday bombing that killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers.

Tunisia

TUNIS — Aviation authorities are trying to understand how an EgyptAir plane slammed into a hillside near Tunis but didn't explode, and how 14 people were killed but some were able to walk away from the severed fuselage unharmed. EgyptAir officials and investigators from Tunisia and Egypt visited the rocky, brush-covered Nahli hillside Wednesday where the Boeing 737 with 62 people aboard hit and skidded to a halt Tuesday amid heavy fog, rain and winds blowing in from the Sahara desert.

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