Australia
SYDNEY — Police stopped and questioned three recently arrested terror suspects near Australia's only nuclear reactor last December, according to a police document released Monday. Eighteen terror suspects were arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week and charged with planning an attack. Police have not identified the likely target.
Azerbaijan
BAKU — More than 20,000 opposition supporters packed a square in Azerbaijan's capital Sunday in the second mass protest in recent days, demanding a rerun of disputed parliamentary elections in this oil-rich Caspian Sea nation. About 15,000 protesters also demonstrated Wednesday against the Nov. 6 elections. Official results show President Ilham Aliev's ruling party won the most seats in the 125-member legislature, while opposition parties won just a handful.
Britain
LONDON — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that British troops could leave Iraq by the end of 2006, an estimate that Britain's top soldier said was realistic but did not amount to a timetable for withdrawal. Talabani said Iraqi troops should be ready to take over from British forces in the southern provinces around Basra by the end of next year, adding that no Iraqis wanted foreign troops to remain indefinitely in their country. But he warned that an immediate withdrawal of U.S.-led forces would be catastrophic for Iraq and lead to civil war, with consequences for the entire Middle East.
Burkina Faso
OUAGADOUGOU — President Blaise Compaore, who has ruled this West African country for nearly two decades, faced a divided opposition that claimed he should not have been allowed to run for a third term in elections Sunday. People lined up outside schools in the capital Ouagadougou, some seeking shade under trees from the scorching sun, to vote in the race that Compaore, 54, is expected to win, continuing his rule over one of the world's poorest countries.
India
NEW DELHI — Indian police said Sunday they made a major breakthrough in the investigation of the triple bombings in New Delhi last month that killed 60 people, arresting a Kashmiri militant leader they said planned and funded the attacks. Tariq Ahmad Dar, a key member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militant group, was arrested in the Indian Kashmir city of Srinagar on Thursday and brought to New Delhi for questioning.
Iran
The head of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency has thrown his weight behind a proposal that calls for Iran to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia and plans to carry the details with him to Tehran within days, diplomats said Sunday in Vienna, Austria. The planned trip by International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei is meant to persuade Tehran to accept the initiative aimed at eliminating Iran's capacity to make fuel for nuclear weapons, despite an initial rejection.
Kenya
NAIROBI — Police fired on a rally in Mombasa against Kenya's draft constitution, fatally wounding four men, a senior opposition leader and a doctor said Saturday. Police broke up the rally on Friday because President Mwai Kibaki, who has supported the proposed constitution ahead of a referendum on Nov. 21, was visiting the port city at the time, said Mutula Kilonzo, chairman of the main group opposing the document.
Pakistan
MUZAFFARABAD — A bus with 50 people on board plunged into a river gorge in a quake-stricken area of northeastern Pakistan on Sunday, an aid group said. The bus fell several feet into the Neelum River about 25 miles from Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistan-controlled section of Kashmir, said Ghulam Ullah Azad, a spokesman for the Islamic charity Jamat-e-Dawad. Azzad said the crash resulted in some deaths.
Vatican City
A French monk who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara and was killed in an anti-French uprising in Algeria in 1916 was beatified by the Vatican on Sunday, the last formal step before possible sainthood. Pope Benedict XVI praised Charles de Foucauld for his humility during the ceremony at St. Peter's Basilica. De Foucauld "discovered that Jesus, joined in our humanity, invites us to universal brotherhood, which (the monk) later lived out in the Sahara," Benedict said, speaking in French to an audience that included Tuaregs in their robes and headgear.