Iraq’s new government vowed Monday to crack down on the killers of at least 50 people found slain in the past 48 hours and said insurgents were trying to cause war between the country’s Shiite Muslim majority and Sunni minority.
SEARCH ON FOR STUDENTS: Nepalese troops resumed their search Monday for hundreds of children taken hostage by insurgents in Nepal, officials said. The number of children taken was unclear. On Sunday, soldiers recovered about 600 children taken Friday.
FOX APOLOGIZES: Mexico President Vicente Fox reversed course Monday and apologized for saying that Mexicans in the U.S. do the work that blacks won’t. In telephone conversations with Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton the president said he “regretted” the statement.
GUILTY MONK DRINKS POISON: A monk drank poison and was rushed to a hospital Monday after becoming the first Buddhist clergyman to be convicted of the sex abuse of a child–a 16-year-old girl–in Sri Lanka, police said. He was in critical condition, a hospital official said.
COUPLE FALLS OVERBOARD?: A Vietnamese-American couple disappeared during a Caribbean cruise, and they probably fell overboard, officials said Monday. The 71-year-old man and 67-year-old woman disappeared sometime Thursday between Barbados and Aruba, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
AID WORKER KIDNAPPED: Four armed men dragged an Italian woman working for CARE International from her car in Afghanistan’s capital on Monday in a bold kidnapping that reinforced fears that militants or criminals are copying tactics used in Iraq.
ETHIOPIAN TURNOUT: The Ethiopian government said Monday that about 90 percent of voters turned out for a parliamentary election seen as a test of Ethiopia’s commitment to democracy.
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Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
