World

For the second time in less than a month, Londoners were dealing with "a very serious incident" targeting their transit systems. Only one minor injury was reported, but the subway system was shut down after coordinated explosions went off in three stations. A double-decker bus also was targeted. In what may have been a related incident, police arrested a man at the gates of Prime Minister Tony Blair's residence. The blasts came two weeks to the day after explosions killed 56 people and injured 700 others on the subway and bus systems - attacks for which a branch of Al Qaeda claimed responsibility.

Terrorists blocked a car carrying two Algerian diplomats in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood and kidnapped them in the latest attempt to dissuade other Muslim governments from recognizing Iraq. There was no immediate word on their fate. Two weeks ago, Egypt's ambassador was kidnapped by Al Qaeda, which later claimed to have executed him, and Pakistan's and Bahrain's envoys were fired on. Meanwhile, although they've suspended their work on the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution, Sunni members warned their Shiite and Kurdish colleagues not to try to complete it in their absence.

An angry Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded - and received - an apology from Sudan's government for the manhandling of members of her party as she was meeting with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in Khartoum. Guards reportedly shoved some of Rice's aides and American journalists and confiscated a tape recorder to prevent coverage of the meeting, which focused on US criticism of the genocide in Darfur.

Germans were gathering around their TV sets for an announcement Thursday by President Horst Koehler on whether - and when - he'll call an early election for a new government. The announcement became necessary after Chancelor Gerhard Schröder intentionally lost a vote of confidence in parliament July 1, in a strategy to win a new mandate for his planned reform of the welfare system. Koehler was not tipping his hand on the announcement, and legal experts said there were questions about whether an early election would be constitutional.