World Highlights

¤ Gunmen killed over 50 people in an attack around a crowded market in a violent town near Baghdad, one of the bloodiest incidents in Iraq this year.

Officials and residents in Mahmudiya, as well as the US military said gunmen, apparently numbering in dozens, stormed the market in the religiously mixed town after a barrage of mortars and grenades..

¤ Indian police officers scoured Mumbai's slums and largely Muslim ghettos looking for suspects in last week's railway network bombings and pursuing several leads. Hundreds of people, mostly minority Muslims, have been questioned and dozens detained since the July 11 blasts on crowded commuter trains and platforms that killed 181 people and wounded hundreds.

¤ A suicide bomber killed a justice department chief in the southern Afghan province of Helmand and gunmen kidnapped 40 villagers near the Pakistani border, officials said.

The suicide bomber struck inside a compound of government buildings in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province which has been the focus of heavy fighting between US-led forces and militants in recent weeks.

¤ A Serbian "roadmap" to catch war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic contains positive elements but lacks detail, EU diplomats said in initial comments on a plan key to restarting talks on EU ties.

EU diplomats said Serbia presented a six-point, one-and-a-half page document to EU President Finland, which stated its main aim was to "locate, arrest and transfer Mladic and other remaining suspects to The Hague".

¤ US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who differ on whether to impose UN sanctions on Iran, expressed concern that Tehran had not responded to an incentives offer. The two leaders made a show of unity in a joint statement declaring their intention to try to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, including in the cases of Iran and North Korea.

¤ Torrential rains have killed at least 170 people across south China since the weekend, flooding cities, sweeping away houses and cutting off utilities as well as rail and road links, state media reported.

The rains were triggered by Tropical Storm Bilis, which killed dozens in the Philippines and Taiwan before hitting China.