China
SHANGHAI — China and Iran are close to setting plans to develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field, according to published reports, in a multibillion-dollar deal that comes as Tehran faces the prospect of sanctions over its nuclear program. The deal is thought potentially to be worth about $100 billion.
Djibouti
Two Marine Corps transport helicopters carrying a dozen troops crashed Friday off the coast of Djibouti, and two were rescued in the initial search, the Pentagon said. The status of the other 10 aboard the CH-53E choppers was not immediately known, officials said. A search-and-rescue mission by troops from the United States, Djibouti and France was under way, according to a statement issued by Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, a U.S.-led military force headquartered at Camp Lemonier, a French military base in Djibouti. The helicopters were on a nighttime training mission at the time of the crash, whose cause had not been determined Friday night.
Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti's president-elect met privately on Friday with political leaders to try and smooth the tensions that followed his turbulent election victory. But Haiti, and much of the world, waited to hear Rene Preval's plans to form a new government and address violence and poverty in Haiti — as well as his stance on his former mentor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former slum priest living in exile after being ousted as president by a violent rebellion two years ago.
Iraq
BAGHDAD — Gunmen dressed in Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped a prominent Iraqi banker and his son from their house in western Baghdad, after shooting five of the family's bodyguards execution-style in the back yard, the police said Friday. The banker, Ghalib Abdul Hussein Kubba, 56, chairman of the International Basra Bank, and his son, Hassan, 27, the general manager, were taken from their large house in the Dakhiliya district around 8 p.m. on Thursday, an Interior Ministry official said.
BAGHDAD — Iranian Foreign Minister Manushehr Mottaki demanded the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra on Friday, saying their presence had destabilized Iraq's second-largest city. British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the demand and accused Iran of trying to divert attention from other issues, presumably its nuclear program.
Japan
Veal plant workers and a government inspector misunderstood new trade rules when they shipped prohibited veal to Japan, the Bush administration conceded Friday in a report aimed at lifting a suspension on American beef. The 475-page report explains why New York-based Atlantic Veal & Lamb sent a shipment of prohibited veal cuts to Japan last month. Japan responded by halting imports of U.S. beef, cutting off a market that had only recently been restored.
Nepal
KATMANDU — Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the royalist government Friday to release 37 political detainees who opposed the king's rule, while communist insurgents freed two abducted officials amid a major army offensive in the southwest. The freed politicians called the court's ruling "a victory for democracy" and pledged to intensify their campaign against King Gyanendra, who seized power in February 2005.
Russia
MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors opened an investigation into the editor of a newspaper that reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and another paper was ordered closed after publishing a cartoon depicting Muhammad along with Jesus, Moses and Buddha. The Prosecutor General's office said the Nash Region newspaper in the Vologda region, some 310 miles northeast of Moscow, have started a probe of Anna Smirnova on charges of using her position to incite hatred.
Sudan
President Bush said Friday in Tampa, Fla., that calming Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region will require "probably double" the current number of international peacekeepers and a coordinating role for NATO. The U.N. already is planning to assume control of peacekeeping from the poorly trained and ill-equipped African Union force, numbering about 7,000, which has not stopped the violence in Darfur. The United States and several other nations have said genocide has occurred in western Sudan, where 180,000 have died from famine and violence in three years.