Brazil
PORTO ALEGRE — A weeklong gathering of the World Social Forum ended with a street protest against possible military action in Iraq and a proposal to create a hemispheric free trade zone that would stretch from Canada to Argentina. Led by bands on trucks like those used in Brazil's Carnival parades, some 30,000 participants in the forum ended a week of discussion and protest intended as a counterpoint to the gathering of business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
China
BEIJING — A bus collided with a truck Tuesday on a highway in northeast China, killing 18 people and injuring 32, an official said. The accident occurred on Shenyan-Siping Highway in Liaoning province, said the official at the Liaoning Administration for Work Safety Supervision.
France
PARIS — The international community must explore all alternatives to war, while Iraq must be more cooperative with weapons inspectors, President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday.
India
CALCUTTA — A passenger bus collided with a truck loaded with paint and caught fire early Tuesday in eastern India, killing at least 40 people, police said. The head-on collision occurred 25 miles south of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state. The bus was on its way to Calcutta from neighboring Orissa state.
Italy
ROME — Leopoldo Trieste, an actor and screenwriter who appeared in "The Godfather: Part II," Federico Fellini's "The White Sheik" and dozens of other films over the past half-century, has died in Rome. He was 85. Over the course of his 56-year career, the actor scripted 11 films and appeared in some 105, including Fellini's "The Young and the Passionate."
Ivory Coast
ABIDJAN — Thousands of government loyalists surrounded the U.S. Embassy here Tuesday to demand that Washington oppose a peace deal they say concedes too much to rebel forces. Waving U.S. flags, the 6,000 people appealed to Washington to block the French-brokered power-sharing accord with rebels who control about half of Ivory Coast, once the economic engine of West Africa. Cheering crowds mobbed the car of a few Americans who ventured out, chanting, "USA! USA!" and pleading for American support. Heavily armed U.S. soldiers looked on.
Kuwait
KUWAIT CITY — A round of ammunition exploded inside the turret of a fighting vehicle at a training site used by U.S. forces in Kuwait, injuring one American soldier and an American civilian contractor, a military spokesman said Tuesday. Neither of the injuries were life-threatening, and the names of the two men were being withheld pending notification of relatives.
Pakistan
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's military said Tuesday its forces shot down an unmanned Indian spy plane over the Pakistan-controlled sector of disputed Kashmir. In a statement, the military-run Inter-Services Public Relations department said the downed aircraft was one of two remote-controlled planes that violated Pakistani air space along the Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani-governed portions of Kashmir.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's religious right, in a reflection of growing outrage against the United States, called Tuesday for the fingerprinting of Americans, a boycott of U.S. products and compulsory AIDS testing of U.S. visitors. A coalition of Islamic parties, which gained considerable political clout in October general elections, presented its demands in a list to the government and threatened nationwide demonstrations to push for them.
Philippines
KIDAPAWAN — A bomb exploded Tuesday in the southern Philippines as a police disposal expert tried to defuse it, injuring at least 16 people and sparking a fire in a three-story commercial building, officials said. The blast took place in Kidapawan city, where a bomb killed seven people and injured 24 others at a bus station in October. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Venezuela
CARACAS — Several business leaders said that schools, restaurants and malls may reopen amid fears that a 57-day-old strike called to force President Hugo Chavez's ouster could backfire. Strike leaders said the work stoppage in the oil industry, which provides half of government revenue, would continue.