• The political movement of Iraqi cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr said it would end a two-month boycott of parliament, smoothing over a rift with its Shi'ite allies in the US-backed government. The political reconciliation with a group viewed with suspicion in Washington came the day after U S forces suffered one of their deadliest days in Iraq. A total of 19 soldiers were killed, including 12 on a helicopter and five in a clash in a Shi'ite holy city that the US military blamed on militiamen.

• A strong earthquake shook buildings in an Indonesian provincial capital, sending residents fleeing from their homes, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the magnitude 7.3 quake but local television said some buildings were cracked in Manado, a city of 400,000 people in northern Sulawesi island, 2,200 km northeast of Jakarta.

• Serbs voted in a tight election race between ultranationalists and reformers, with the West openly taking sides in the hope that the next government will cooperate over Kosovo and war criminals. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the EU President, said after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin she hoped democratic forces would be strengthened in Serbia.

• Kenya has sent about 30 prisoners shackled hand-and-foot on a plane to Somalia after arresting them near the border on suspicion of belonging to an ousted Islamist movement, their representatives said. The deportees,who a lawyer said included one Canadian and three Eritreans, were among scores of suspected Islamist fighters and supporters rounded up by Kenyan forces after a war that ended the movement's six-month rule of south Somalia.