World Highlights

¤ Peruvians voted yesterday in a presidential run-off pitting a former leader who brought on economic ruin in the 1980s against an ex-army nationalist promising a revolution against the country's elite.

¤ Kidnappers in Nigeria freed eight foreign oil workers yesterday, two days after they were seized in an unprecedented raid on a rig far offshore that heightened fears in an oil industry hurt by a series of militant attacks.

¤ Bolivia's leftist president, Evo Morales, took a first step on Saturday toward handing over a fifth of the country's territory to poor farmers, a day after angry landowners vowed to form self-defence groups.

¤ A Palestinian bank began paying one month's salary to thousands of civil servants yesterday despite threats of Western sanctions against institutions dealing with the Hamas government.

¤ A Chinese military transport plane with at least 40 aboard has crashed in the eastern province of Anhui, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. There were no reports of survivors.

¤ A Taliban suicide car bomber killed at least four Afghans in the southern city of Kandahar yesterday in an attack on the provincial governor as he travelled with a convoy of Canadian troops, officials said.

¤ Californians will choose the Democrat tomorrow who will try to terminate Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's short political career, but after a nasty primary both challengers are bruised and many voters disaffected.

¤ Islamic court militia seized a strategic town outside Mogadishu yesterday, dislodging a member of the anti-terrorism warlord coalition in fierce fighting that left nine people dead, officials and residents said.