UK-World Summary
Clashes with police in Tehran on anniversary
TEHRAN - Police clashed with supporters of Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran on Wednesday when a rally marking the 30th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy turned violent. Reformist website Mowjcamp said police opened fire on protesters at Haft-e Tir square, but there was no independent confirmation of the report. "Some people were injured," Mowjcamp said, reporting other protests in the cities of Shiraz and Rasht.
Karzai to form new government, Abdullah won't take part
KABUL - Technocrats and some existing ministers will be included among Afghan President Hamid Karzai's new government within the next three weeks, a spokesman said on Wednesday, but his main rival ruled out taking any part. Karzai, re-elected after a needless presidential run-off vote was abandoned on Monday, has received stern warnings from U.S. President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others in the West that he must work harder to root out corruption that tainted his previous administration.
WITNESS - The news conference that toppled the Wall
BERLIN - It's not often that a historic announcement comes, as an afterthought, almost by accident, at the end of an otherwise stultifyingly tedious press conference. But that's how the Communist East German government told an incredulous world that the Berlin Wall, that most potent symbol of the Cold War, would be thrown open after three decades.
Obama faces setback after Republicans win
WASHINGTON - Republicans rolled to victory in Virginia and New Jersey governor's races on Tuesday in a sharp blow to Democrats that showed the limits of U.S. President Barack Obama's political clout. After suffering a one-two punch in those two states, Democrats salvaged a victory over a conservative candidate in a congressional district in upstate New York in a race that exposed a split in the Republican Party.
Ukraine says to pay on time for Russian gas
KIEV - Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz will pay for Russian gas on time, Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said on Wednesday after Moscow raised doubts whether bills would be settled and called on the European Union to lend Kiev money. Rows between Kiev and Moscow over gas bills and prices led to winter supply cuts in January that affected hundreds of thousands of Europeans. The EU receives about 20 percent of its gas from Russia travelling in pipelines through Ukraine.
Israeli navy intercepts arms ship - military
JERUSALEM - Israel said on Wednesday its navy intercepted in the Mediterranean a container ship carrying rockets destined for Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group and took the vessel to an Israeli port. Israeli media reports said the weaponry was supplied by Iran.
Quake hits south Iran, 269 injured
TEHRAN - An earthquake hit Iran's southern province of Hormozgan on Wednesday, injuring 269 people, the official news agency IRNA reported. The quake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale damaged houses and electricity lines in the port city of Bandar Abbas, where frightened people ran onto the streets, it said.
Obama's brother emerges in China with novel
GUANGZHOU, China - U.S. President Barack Obama's half-brother made a rare appearance on Wednesday in southern China, his home for seven years, to launch a novel he says draws on his painful childhood under an abusive father. Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo -- who had the same, late, father as the U.S. President -- has kept a low public profile since reports surfaced last year that he was living and working in the southern Chinese capitalist and manufacturing haven of Shenzhen, around an hour's train ride from Hong Kong.
Yemen rebels kill Saudi in cross-border raid
RIYADH - Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday a security officer was killed and 11 others wounded in an attack by unidentified gunmen in an area near the Yemeni border, which Yemeni rebels said they had seized in a cross-border raid. The Shi'ite Muslim rebels accuse Saudi Arabia of backing Yemeni government forces in the conflict, although Sanaa has denied any Saudi involvement.
Karadzic wants more time for genocide defence
THE HAGUE - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared in court on Tuesday for the first time since his trial for genocide started but said he would take no further part unless he had more time to prepare his defence. Karadzic, acting as his own attorney, boycotted the start of proceedings last week before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he faces 11 war crimes charges, including two of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.