China
HONG KONG — A top U.S. official told Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa on Sunday that Washington will be watching to see how the territory's political system develops now that Beijing has ruled out full democracy in the near term. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said it was too soon to determine whether China had harmed Hong Kong's promised autonomy when it ruled out direct elections for the territory's next leader in 2007 and all lawmakers in 2008.
Dominican Republic
SANTO DOMINGO — Dominicans desperate for relief from a severe economic crisis turned out in massive numbers Sunday to choose their next president in a vote marred by a polling station shooting that left three dead. The violence broke out in a line of voters outside a school in the southwestern town of Barahona, when a supporter of President Hipolito Mejia and a backer of his leading rival pulled guns and opened fire during an argument, observers said.
England
LONDON — The British government is still considering sending more troops to Iraq, Britain's defense secretary said Sunday, as lawmakers warned that Prime Minister Tony Blair must rethink his strategy to secure his leadership position. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said no decision has been made on extra troops, but the situation remains under constant review. But he ruled out a parliamentary vote on the issue if more troops are committed — a condition sought by opponents of the deployment.
France
METZ — A nuclear power plant reactor in eastern France was shut down Sunday after a fire started in a thicket of electrical cables, plant officials said. The blaze erupted just after noon at the Cattenom plant in the Moselle region, and the second of the plant's four reactors was shut down, officials said. The fire was away from the nuclear reactors and did not threaten them, officials said. No one was injured, and there was no environmental damage.
Germany
BERLIN — Libya could not agree with German lawyers Sunday on how much compensation to pay for claims stemming from a 1986 disco bombing in Berlin that killed three people — including two U.S. soldiers — and injured 229, the lawyers said. Envoys of a Libyan foundation and the German side were tens of millions of dollars apart concerning how much should be paid to 163 non-U.S. victims who suffered physical and psychological injury from the attack blamed on the Libyan secret service, lawyers said.
Italy
ROME — Nearly two decades after music greats gathered to record the hit song "We are the World" to benefit Africa's hungry, a new generation of stars came together Sunday for a follow-up concert to benefit children in war zones. The "We are the Future" concert got off to a heart-pounding start with a performance by the garbage can-clanging percussion group Stomp.
Japan
TOKYO — Tokyo plans to ask the United States to grant amnesty to an alleged U.S. Army defector who married a Japanese woman kidnapped by North Korea, an official said Sunday. Charles Robert Jenkins, an American who married Hitomi Soga in the North after she was kidnapped from her coastal Japanese hometown in 1978, is wanted by Washington for allegedly deserting his U.S. Army post and defecting to the North in the 1960s.
Philippines
MANILA — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo widened her lead Sunday over opposition front-runner Fernando Poe Jr. in an independent count of votes from last week's national elections, but Poe's party claimed to be gathering evidence of widespread cheating.
South Korea
SEOUL — Washington wants to move some of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to Iraq, South Korean officials said Monday. In Washington, a senior defense official confirmed that the Pentagon is in discussions with Seoul about using some Korea-based U.S. forces in Iraq.
Vatican City
Pope John Paul II named six new saints Sunday, including a woman who became a symbol for abortion opponents because she refused to end her pregnancy despite warnings that it could kill her. The Vatican has long championed the case of Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician who died in 1962 at the age of 39 — a week after giving birth to her fourth child. Doctors had told her it was dangerous to proceed with the pregnancy because she had a tumor in her uterus, but she insisted on carrying the baby to term.