World

Resisters shot to death three Iraqi women working for coalition forces and critically wounded a fourth Sunday. The killings came in separate attacks in Baghdad and the city of Mahmoudiyah. Meanwhile, six Italian soldiers were wounded in Nasariyah as other resisters fired on them from inside a hospital. The Italians did not shoot back out of concern that innocent civilians might be hurt.

Despite the largest peace protest in years, Israel threatened the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip if gunmen continue using them for cover in attacks on its armed forces. The threat was given new weight Sunday by the Supreme Court, which rejected a petition by attorneys for a Palestinian rights group to halt the demolition. An estimated 120,000 people organized by left-wing activists rallied in Tel Aviv Saturday to demand the military and Jewish settlements be pulled out of the Gaza Strip.

Four communist parties were meeting in India to decide whether to join a new coalition government led by Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party. The widow of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1991, already has the support of two socialist parties, which have said they'd join her coalition. She must prove to Parliament by week's end that she has enough votes for a majority. But the outgoing Hindu nationalist government threatened to quit Parliament and organize a "national pride" campaign against her because of her Italian birth.

Given a new lease on political life, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun apologized for "mistakes committed by people around me" and vowed to redouble efforts to address the struggling economy and relations with communist North Korea. Roh was reinstated Friday by the Supreme Court after his impeachment in March for an election-law violation. The court ruled the infraction was not serious enough to warrant his removal from office. Meanwhile, the latest round of six- nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program ended Friday without evident progress, although the North said it would continue to negotiate.

A new bid to bestow on women the right to vote and run for elective office was approved by Kuwait's cabinet and sent to Emir Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah. He is pledged to the reform, but it confronts an uncertain fate in parliament, which has the power to approve any change to the Constitution. It overruled the last such effort five years ago and its sizable conservative Islamist bloc opposes most Western-style innovations.