World
US bombers were finding new targets in Afghanistan, most of them in and around Kabul, the capital (where residents gather around a destroyed building, below), in a fifth day of air-strikes. The raids featured 5,000-pound "bunker buster" ordnance designed to penetrate hidden Taliban command centers. And in a sign that the assault soon would enter a new phase, neighboring Pakistan's government acknowledged that US forces already were using two of its key air bases, although not to launch attacks. (Related stories, pages 1, 2, 7; related opinions, page 11.)
Anti-US demonstrations and violence against Western-looking individuals were on the rise in several parts of the world:
A Canadian was shot dead and his wife was wounded critically on a street in Fahaheel, Kuwait. He was an employee of a US defense contractor.
An explosive device was thrown at a car carrying a German couple in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It broke their windshield but bounced off and detonated without injuring them.
In Indonesia, the hard-line Front for the Defenders of Islam said it had begun hunting for Americans and Britons to intimidate them into leaving.
Quetta, Pakistan, already the scene of violent protests, was bracing for more, plus a general strike, after today's Muslim prayer services.
India's top Muslim cleric vowed to lead a protest of "at least 30,000" people in New Delhi.
A protest organized by Muslim and labor leaders attracted more than 3,000 people in Cape Town, South Africa. Similar rallies were held in Calcutta, India; Jakarta and five other Indonesian cities; and Amman, Jordan.
A new national election was ordered by Sri Lanka's president with her minority government confronting certain defeat in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Chandrika Kumaratunga disbanded the legislature and scheduled the election for Dec. 5. It will be the island nation's second in 14 months. Kumara-tunga's People's Alliance-led coalition lost its majority in Parliament Wednesday when nine lawmakers defected to the opposition.
Tensions ratcheted higher in the Abkhazia region of the former Soviet Union, where fierce clashes were reported in their fourth day between defenders and raiders allegedly from Georgia and Chechnya. Abkhazian separatist leaders also reacted angrily to the announcement that hundreds of Army reinforcements were being sent to a strategic gorge to defend the local Georgian population, calling it "a step toward war."
After years of speculation that he'd win the Nobel Prize in literature, British novelist V.S. Naipaul was announced as the recipient of the 100th anniversary award for his "incorruptible scrutiny" of culture in the postcolonial world. The Nobel committee singled out his 1987 work "The Enigma of Arrival" for special mention. The prize is worth $943,000.
