China
BEIJING — A truck crashed into a minivan and a passenger bus in northwest China after its brakes failed, killing at least 26 people and injuring 24, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The accident occurred Monday afternoon near Tianshui, a city in Gansu province, when the truck loaded with bicycle wheels collided with the minivan and the bus, Xinhua said.
BEIJING — An explosion rocked a hospital parking garage in northern China Monday, killing at least 27 people, the government said. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, the official Xinhua News Agency said early Tuesday.
Ghana
ACCRA — An overloaded motorboat carrying about 150 passengers on a vast lake in this West African nation has sunk, and 110 people are missing and feared dead, police said Monday. Only 40 people are known to have survived the sinking Saturday afternoon on Lake Volta, said Akwasi Anyidoho, a police official in the region. He said hopes for finding more survivors were slim.
Israel
JERUSALEM — Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will complete his plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank and draw the country's final borders before the next U.S. presidential election in 2008, a senior Olmert aide said in a published report Monday. Olmert, whose Kadima Party won last month's parliamentary election, had previously said he aimed to complete his plan by the end of his term in 2010. But Yoram Turbowicz, who is slated to be Olmert's chief of staff, said it needed to be finished while President Bush remained in office, according to the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
Peru
LIMA — A gruff, polarizing retired army officer who courted Peru's poor and terrified its rich with promises to distribute the country's wealth more fairly appeared on Monday to be headed for a presidential runoff. The 43-year-old military man, Ollanta Humala, called on "all Peruvians" after Sunday's vote to "join up with this movement to transform Peru." But a close battle for second place left unanswered whom Humala would likely face in the second round — pro-business former congresswoman Lourdes Flores or Alan Garcia, a center-left ex-president.
Australia
SYDNEY — Again and again, diplomats warned the Australian government that the country's monopoly wheat exporter may have been pumping millions of dollars into Saddam Hussein's coffers. Trade Minister Mark Vaile said, however, that he was very busy and could not recall ever being warned about any alleged wrongdoing. A government inquiry into the Australian Wheat Board's role in Saddam's multimillion-dollar manipulation of the discredited U.N. oil-for-food program exploded into life Monday when Vaile became the first government minister to testify.
Nepal
KATMANDU — Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas and beat back stone-throwing Nepalese protesters, who defied curfews and took to the streets of this Himalayan nation for a fifth straight day Monday to demand that democracy be restored. Nepal's crisis showed no signs of easing as angry mobs again marched through major cities and far-flung towns, burning tires and hurling bricks at police wielding batons and shields. King Gyanendra's government remained steadfast in its refusal to reach out to the political opposition, now allied with Nepal's communist insurgents in a campaign to force the king to relinquish control.
Kenya
NAIROBI — A military plane carrying politicians to a peace conference crashed while attempting to land in northern Kenya during bad weather Monday, killing at least 14 people, including two assistant Cabinet ministers. Four of the 17 people on the plane were pulled from the fiery wreckage alive and flown to Nairobi for treatment, witnesses said. But one survivor died on the way.