Afghanistan
KABUL — Militants attacked a U.S. patrol with rocket-propelled grenades, killing three Americans in Afghanistan's wild northeast, an official said Saturday. U.S. troops used artillery to repel the attack in Nuristan province Friday, said Col. Tom Collins. The clash in Nuristan province's Waygal district on Friday also wounded three U.S. soldiers and one civilian.
Canada
TORONTO — Thousands of AIDS experts, activists and politicians streamed into Toronto on Saturday for the world's largest conference devoted to combating the disease — many of them determined to speak for the world's 2.3 million infected children who are often forgotten. Experts say that drugs exist to prevent infected mothers from transmitting the disease to children at birth, but many women don't have access to such medication.
Chile
SANTIAGO — Colombian rebels attempted to traffic drugs through Chile, police said Saturday in describing the seizure of almost a half-ton of cocaine and arrests of 12 people. Police Gen. Samuel Cabezas said the investigation is still developing "and we are in close consultation with intelligence services in several countries."
Congo
KINSHASA — President Joseph Kabila's share of the vote in Congo's historic elections rose above 50 percent Saturday as 1 million more votes were counted and certified, official results showed. With a rash of tallies coming in from Congo's east, the president extended his share to 53 percent, compared with 19 percent for Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel leader in the civil war and vice president in a postwar unity government.
India
SRINAGAR — Thousands of villagers protested in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Saturday after an ambush by security forces targeting Muslim militants mistakenly killed two civilians, including a teenage girl. Separately, a civilian sleeping in his home was killed by a stray bullet from a nearby gunbattle between Indian soldiers and Islamic rebels.
Ireland
LONDONDERRY — About 15,000 Protestants paraded through this predominantly Roman Catholic city Saturday following a night of Catholic rioting. Northern Ireland police said rioters in the Bogside, the major Catholic district beside central Londonderry, hijacked and burned at least two cars and threw about 50 Molotov cocktails at police, who were wearing flame-retardant suits, body armor and helmets. Nobody was reported injured.
Mexico
MEXICO CITY — Mexico's leftist presidential candidate wants votes from nearly 5,000 polling places thrown out amid signs that a partial recount won't change enough results to swing the election his way. "Annulling (the results) from these polling places would change the balance of the election, and would mean that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would be the winner," said Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate's top campaign aide.
PACHUCA — A passenger bus skidded off a highway in central Mexico early Saturday and rolled down a 320-foot slope, killing 13 people and injuring a dozen others, local police said. Rescue workers struggled to pull the injured and dead from the wreckage of the bus, which came to rest at the bottom of a rocky gully just outside the city of Pachuca, about 60 miles northeast of Mexico City.
Russia
MOSCOW — A senior Russian police officer said Saturday that a late curator, who has been the focus of an investigation into the theft of art from the State Hermitage Museum, had offered to sell some of the stolen items to an antiques dealer. Russia's most famous museum announced last month that 221 items worth $5 million were stolen. Larisa Zavadskaya, the curator in charge of the Russian art collection, died suddenly at work when a routine inventory check began last year.
Sri Lanka
COLOMBO — In the worst fighting since a 2002 cease-fire, ethnic rebels advanced toward Sri Lanka's strategic Jaffna peninsula on Saturday as government jets bombed rebel positions and truce monitors were told to stay away. The military said it had lost 27 soldiers and killed 100 rebels. No casualty figures were offered by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.