World Highlights

¤ A bomb in a police car killed at least eight Afghans as NATO forces took control of security in southern Afghanistan to begin one of the biggest ground operations in the alliance's history. The blast occurred in the eastern city of Jalalabad, far from the transfer-of-command ceremony on a base outside the southern city of Kandahar.

¤ An Iranian student has died in jail while on a hunger strike aimed at persuading authorities to release him, Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad said. Akbar Mohammadi, arrested for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations in 1999, was the first political dissident known to have died in prison in Iran for many years.

¤ Thousands of protesters caused commuter chaos by closing off Mexico City's business district to traffic, pressing the main leftist candidate's demand for a vote recount in a presidential election he says was stolen from him. Launching a campaign of civil disobedience that raises the stakes in Mexico's political crisis, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's supporters seized control of Zocalo square and 10-km stretch of Reforma boulevard.

¤ Hundreds of far-right Colombian militia members who demobilised after peace talks have formed at least 10 new gangs linked to cocaine smuggling and extortion, a government report said. Top military and human rights officials said the groups would pose a big challenge to the second government of President Alvaro Uribe, which starts in a week.

¤ Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed an army bus with a fragmentation mine in the island's restive east and 18 soldiers were feared dead in the blast.

¤ South Asian rivals India and Pakistan renewed their commitment to a peace process that came under severe strain after New Delhi blamed Pakistan-based Islamist militants for the Mumbai bombings. Their foreign secretaries held talks on the sidelines of a regional conference in Dhaka and agreed to address each other's concerns over militant violence.

¤ Gunmen wearing uniforms of Iraqi security forces kidnapped 25 people from an office in central Baghdad. The gunmen pulled up in four-wheel-drive vehicles and kidnapped employees and customers at the office in Arasat, once a thriving commercial district. Some witnesses said the offices were those of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry and al-Rawi mobile telephone company.

¤ Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war is back on, a top Tamil Tiger said, as seven soldiers and three rebels were killed in the first army advance on rebel-held territory since a 2002 ceasefire.

¤ India has stepped up security at its nuclear installations fearing an attack by a Pakistan-based militant group. Indian police have arrested a journalist who may know those behind a series of co-ordinated bombs on Mumbai's rail network earlier this month that killed 186 people. The latest arrest takes the number of people in police custody to nine in an investigation that has spread across several states, and into neighbouring Nepal.

¤ Raging sectarian violence has sharply pushed up the number of refugees in Iraq, with about 20,000 more displaced in the last 10 days alone. The total number of displaced has reached 182,154 since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on February 22 touched off reprisals and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.