World Highlights

¤ Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rested in hospital after a minor stroke that raised questions over his political future, but doctors said he should recover fully and was unlikely to face another attack.

The hefty 77-year-old former general, battling for re-election after pulling Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and remaking Israel's political landscape, was rushed to hospital on Sunday.

¤ Former warlords, ex-communists, Taliban defectors and women activists were sworn in as members of the first Afghan parliament in more than 30 years amid hopes of national reconciliation after decades of bloodshed.

The inauguration was peaceful despite threats by Taliban guerillas and was greeted with tears of emotion although there is disappointment that many in the parliament are accused of serious rights abuses and links to the drugs trade.

¤ Evo Morales, who challenges US anti-drug policies, was set to become Bolivia's first Indian president and join Latin America's shift to leftist leadership after winning an unexpectedly large majority in Sunday's elections.

Mr Morales' rivals conceded defeat when results tabulated by local media showed him taking slightly more than 50 per cent of the vote, much higher than predicted.

¤ An eight-year-old Indonesian boy has died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu according to local tests, a Health Ministry official said.

Hariadi Wibisono, who heads a department charged with eradicating animal-borne diseases, said the boy's results had yet to be confirmed by a Hong Kong laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organisation.

¤ Israel's Likud party voted for a new leader to rebuild the long-dominant rightist faction left shattered by the defection of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last month.

Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister who opposed Mr Sharon's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, seen as more flexible on possible peacemaking with the Palestinians, are frontrunners in a field of four.