Australia
CANBERRA — Prime Minister John Howard announced Monday he plans to lead his party into next year's general elections, and his ambitious deputy said he'd put aside his own desire for the top job.
Bolivia
LA PAZ — President Evo Morales has backed off a proposal to remove Roman Catholic instruction from Bolivia's schools, easing a dispute with church officials over his plan to place greater emphasis on Indian faiths.
China
BEIJING — Beijing plans to start building a second international airport after the 2008 Olympics, a news report said Monday.
SHANGHAI — Shanghai has constructed a massive underground bunker complex capable of sheltering 200,000 people from a nuclear attack, a local newspaper reported. The million-square-foot complex connects to shopping centers, office buildings, apartment buildings and the subway system via miles of tunnels, the Shanghai Morning Post said in an exclusive report.
Congo
MBUJI-MAYI — Polls opened for an extra day Monday in central Congo, but it appeared that few took advantage of the second chance to vote in what officials said was a massive boycott called by one candidate.
Iran
TEHRAN — A jailed student activist has died in Tehran's most notorious prison after a nine-day hunger strike to protest a lack of medical care, a human rights group said Monday. Akbar Mohammadi, 34, who died Sunday in Evin Prison, was arrested for taking part in protests at Tehran University in July 1999.
Peru
LIMA — President Alan Garcia cut government salaries, including his own, on Monday, three days after announcing a long list of austerity measures in his inaugural address. Garcia, whose 1985-1990 government was plagued by mismanagement and corruption that left Peru nearly bankrupt, blasted outgoing President Alejandro Toledo for spending lavishly while failing to help Peru's poor.
Russia
MOSCOW — Several thousand gallons of crude oil leaked from a Russian pipeline over the weekend, briefly shutting down a major export route and causing prices to spike to about $75 a barrel on world oil markets. The 2,500-mile-long Druzhba pipeline, which moves oil from Siberian fields to consumers in Central and Eastern Europe, ruptured on Saturday toward its western end.
MOSCOW — Russia's famed State Hermitage Museum on Monday reported the theft of more than 220 works, including jewelry and enameled objects, worth around $5 million, an incident that highlighted the poor security at Russian cultural institutions.
Spain
MADRID — Sunbathers on a beach in Spain's Canary Islands came to the aid of 88 African migrants whose boat ran aground Sunday, giving them food, water and blankets after their dangerous trip in search of a new life, authorities said.
Sri Lanka
COLOMBO — As government and rebel ground troops clashed for a second consecutive day over control of an irrigation canal in the country's east, a senior rebel leader rang the death knell Monday on Sri Lanka's feeble, four-year-old truce.
Turkey
ANKARA — Turkey named a new military chief Monday who favors a tougher line against Kurdish rebels and negotiations on the secular Muslim country joining the European Union. The change comes as the United States is pressing Turkey to contribute to a possible peacekeeping force along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Uganda
ON THE CONGO-SUDAN BORDER — Joseph Kony, the elusive leader of a brutal 19-year Ugandan rebellion held his first formal peace talks with government officials Monday, giving a boost to efforts to end a conflict that killed thousands of civilians and forced children to become fighters.