Brazil
BRASILIA — President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came under criticism Wednesday for deciding to expel a New York Times correspondent who had written a story saying the Brazilian leader was a heavy drinker. The newspaper protested the order against correspondent Larry Rohter and said it "would take appropriate action to defend his rights."
Bulgaria
SOFIA — A person suspected in the Madrid train bombings in March that killed 191 people has been detained in Bulgaria, a senior official said Wednesday. No further details were given.
Chile
SANTIAGO — A Health Ministry official was fired for endorsing a one-time distribution of condoms by a state-run paper in the predominantly Catholic country, the health minister said Wednesday. Juan Domingo Silva, the public affairs chief at the ministry's AIDS prevention office, was fired Tuesday after backing the giveaway by the newspaper La Nacion without reporting to his superiors, Health Minister Pedro Garcia said.
China
BEIJING — China says it might adopt a law mandating that rival Taiwan unify with the mainland. "Unification is the common wish of the Chinese people, including Taiwan people," Li Weiyi, a spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said Wednesday. "China will seriously consider all suggestions for unification, including by legal means."
England
LONDON — One of every 10 schoolchildren in the world is overweight, and about 45 million have an increased risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses before the age of 20, said the first global assessment of child obesity. The report, compiled by The International Obesity Task Force, estimates that at least 155 million children between the ages of 5 and 17, or about 10 percent of the total, are too heavy, while almost 45 million of them are obese.
Greece
ATHENS — A private bank was damaged Thursday in a firebomb attack, authorities said, despite heightened police measures to crack down on arson gangs before the Summer Olympics. The branch of the private Alpha Bank was damaged when two small cooking gas canisters exploded outside the building in the coastal Voula suburb. No one was injured, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA — U.S. authorities have returned to Honduras nearly 300 pieces of Mayan jewelry, some dating back to about 500 A.D., federal authorities said Wednesday. U.S. authorities seized the jewelry from an Ohio store in 1998 and returned the items this month to the Honduran ambassador in Washington, Mario Canahuati. "An investigation will be performed to determine how they were stolen and exported," said Jani del Cid, special prosecutor for ethnic and cultural patrimony. The pieces also included animal figures, musical instruments, projectile heads and containers.
North Korea
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Wednesday proposed holding high-level military talks with South Korea on May 26 aimed at reducing tension centered on the international standoff over the communist state's nuclear weapons development.
Philippines
MANILA — Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered her government Wednesday to decide if Filipinos working at U.S. military bases in Iraq should be evacuated after one was killed and four others wounded in a mortar attack.
Switzerland
GLAND — The world's cod stocks could be wiped out by 2020 because of overfishing, illegal catches and oil exploration, the environment group WWF said Thursday. WWF — the World Wide Fund for Nature — said the world's largest remaining cod stock, in the Barents Sea, is under particular threat.
Syria
DAMASCUS — Syria denounced U.S. economic sanctions on Wednesday, and other Arab countries — including close U.S. allies — joined in the criticism. Europe ignored the penalties by dispatching a trade delegation to Damascus. Some Arabs questioned the validity of the measures and the motives behind them, saying they serve Israeli — not American — interests and could further antagonize Arab feelings toward the United States, already soured by the war in Iraq, the prisoner-abuse scandal and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.