World
UN Security Council members Russia and France signaled shifts in their positions on a new resolution to disarm Iraq. In Paris, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said "Iraq has defied the will of the Security Council for far too long.... This cannot continue." Senior Russian officials said US demands of Iraq were "unfulfillable" but that their government could support a resolution that did not call for "automatic" use of force. For their part, senior Iraqis scorned President Bush's speech Monday as "full of lies." In reaction elsewhere, protesters in Seoul rally outside the US Embassy.
Unidentified civilians infiltrating a joint US-Kuwaiti military exercise shot and killed an American Marine and wounded another on an island off the Persian Gulf oil state. The assailants were killed by return fire. The Pentagon said the exercise is unrelated to a possible future effort to oust Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile:
The deportation of an American fugitive charged with conspiracy to help Al Qaeda was stayed by a court in Malaysia after Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal asked for political asylum. Four of his alleged accomplices were arrested last week in Oregon and Michigan.
The captain of a French supertanker that burst into flames and exploded off Yemen last weekend insisted that a smaller boat had closed in on it immediately beforehand. The incident, which killed one person, is under official investigation as a possible terrorist attack.
Russian authorities arrested a man for trying to smuggle 27 tons of enriched uranium out of the country. It wasn't clear whether the uranium was potent enough for a nuclear bomb.
Brushing off international rebukes of Israel's raid that killed 14 Palestinians and wounded 80 others Monday, Prime Minister Sharon said it had been "an important one" and "there will be others of this sort." The attack in Khan Younis was aimed at putting members of Hamas on notice that they're no longer safe in the crowded Gaza Strip.
What appeared to be the largest turnout of voters yet as high as 52 percent in some areas went to the polls for the final round of critical state elections in disputed Kashmir. Overall, Indian officials said 44 percent of eligible voters took part in the election, despite efforts at intimidation by Muslim separatist guerrillas. In all, 410 people died and 713 were hurt in violence since the election was announced in August.
