Afghanistan
KABUL — A four-day rebellion that left six inmates dead and exposed security flaws at Afghanistan's main prison ended Wednesday after more than 1,000 inmates surrendered. The prisoners were shifted out of a wrecked wing of Policharki prison in Kabul that was left empty and scarred by fire and bullets. The last to give up were about 100 al-Qaida and Taliban militants, now confined to separate, higher-security quarters.
Argentina
BUENOS AIRES — President Nestor Kirchner told Congress on Wednesday that Argentina's recovery from a deep crisis in 2002 is one of the strongest rebounds here in a century. Kirchner said last year's renegotiation of a more than $100 billion debt default was a success, and that the country gained greater financial independence through its early payment of $9.75 billion in debt to the International Monetary Fund in January.
Czech Republic
PRAGUE — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow bears moral responsibility for the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, part of an effort to ease anger over the past and boost relations with former Soviet satellites in Central Europe.
El Salvador
SAN SALVADOR — El Salvador on Wednesday became the first Central American nation to join a regional free trade agreement with the United States. President Tony Saca inaugurated the pact in a ceremony at a food exporting company. But about 3,000 people marched elsewhere in the capital, San Salvador, to protest the agreement, which they say will hurt local farmers, street vendors and organized labor.
Iran
Iran refused to back down Wednesday in crucial talks on Russia's offer to enrich uranium for Tehran, but negotiators agreed to resume discussions today in Moscow on a plan meant to ease Western fears Iran wants to build an atomic bomb. The chief Iranian nuclear negotiator also said his country did not intend to agree to Russian demands to impose another moratorium on uranium enrichment activity.
Mexico
MEXICO CITY — President Vicente Fox rejected suggestions that his government has lost control in the fight against organized crime and said he supports extraditing more drug traffickers to the United States, though he conceded that could lead to more assassination attempts against judges and politicians.
Nepal
KATMANDU — The bodies of 11 Nepalese security forces and 18 suspected rebels were found Wednesday at the site of a fierce gunfight in western Nepal, the Defense Ministry said, while five insurgents were reported killed in a bomb explosion. Security forces found the bodies a day after a gunbattle in Panena village in the Palpa district, which broke out when soldiers patrolling the area came under attack from Maoist rebels who surrounded them on a gorge.
Nigeria
WARRI — Militants released six foreign oil workers, including a diabetic Texan celebrating his 69th birthday Wednesday, taken captive last month to press fighters' demands for a greater share of oil revenues generated in this restive southern state. But three other hostages — two Americans and a Briton — were kept by militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. Those released Wednesday included Macon Hawkins of Kosciusko, Texas.
Russia
MOSCOW — Russia's space program suffered another embarrassing failure Wednesday, when a booster rocket failed to put an Arab commercial satellite to a designated orbit, officials said. The Arabsat 4A telecommunications satellite owned by the Saudi ARABSAT company was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was atop a Proton-M booster rocket equipped with an additional Briz-M upper stage, the Russian Federal Space Agency said in a statement.
Somalia
BAIDOA — An American staff member for UNICEF has been kidnapped by a Somali militia group in a dispute over money, the U.N. and a local resident said Thursday. Robert McCarthy was abducted Wednesday in Afmadow, about 260 miles southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, Sandra Macharia, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Development Program's Somalia office, said.