World Highlights

¤ Seven Russian troops were killed and 25 wounded yesterday when gunmen attacked their military column in Chechnya, Interfax news agency reported. A source in the Russian military said the column was near the village of Avtury, southeast of regional capital Grozny, where the foothills to the Caucasus mountains rise from the plain. Rebel attacks in Chechnya are frequent and several police and soldiers die every week.

¤ Gunmen pulled the deputy electricity minister from his car in a busy Baghdad street yesterday, briefly kidnapping him and 19 bodyguards in an attack that underlined the vulnerability of Iraq's new government.

Raad al-Harith was released with seven of his bodyguards 12 hours after he was abducted by men wearing camouflage uniforms, who stopped his convoy in eastern Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said.

¤ Mexico's leftist presidential candidate, trailing narrowly in the vote, will call street protests if necessary to challenge an election he says was full of irregularities, senior aides said yesterday.

But Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was not yet calling for street demonstrations and would first take his challenge to Mexico's election authorities.

¤ The EU will tell Iran today that time is running short for it to agree to enter negotiations on incentives to curb its nuclear activities or face possible penalties.

Diplomats doubt Iran's top nuclear negotiator will give a firm answer in talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, but say Iran will be subject to UN Security Council action if no answer arrives before major power meetings next week.

¤ A bomb in the Afghan capital Kabul wounded more than six people yesterday and 12 Taliban insurgents were killed in a clash in the south where NATO forces are set to take control.

Afghanistan is going through its worst phase of violence since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

¤ The death toll from the latest mass attempt by African migrants to storm into a Spanish enclave in north Africa has risen to three, a Moroccan official said yesterday.

A hospital report said the third person was a 28-year-old Cameroonian who died in hospital from pelvic injuries following the incident, in which up to 70 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa tried to stampede into Spain's African enclave of Melilla.

¤ Heavy rains triggered floods and landslides across India, killing 32 people and disrupting life in the financial hub of Mumbai for a second day, officials and residents said.

The bad weather was caused by a depression over the east coast and a revival of the June-September annual monsoon rains which had hit a lean patch, leading to a dry spell across large swathes of the subcontinent.

¤ Nearly 50 people were injured in clashes with police as opposition activists tried to enforce a general strike in Bangladesh, police and witnesses said.

Ten people were injured in the capital's Russell Square after baton-wielding police swooped on rock-throwing activists attacking vehicles.

¤ Gangsters wielding AK-47s carjacked the Kenyan trade minister, stealing a gun, cash, and mobile phones in the latest high-profile crime in a city dubbed "Nairobbery" for its chronic insecurity, local media said.Mukhisa Kituyi was driving home late evening on Monday when four men in a saloon car blocked his official four-wheel-drive car in Nairobi's posh Westlands area.