World

Chief UN inspector Hans Blix planned a report Tuesday to the Security Council on his "first glance" at Iraq's 12,000-page weapons-program report. But no distribution of the documents was expected for a week while screeners examine the contents. The report was en route to New York Sunday as 32 more of Blix's inspectors arrived in the Iraqi capital to join the 17 already at work.

Senior officials in Kuwait quickly rejected Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's unexpected apology for the 1990-91 occupation of the oil-rich state. The apology was directed to the Kuwaiti people rather than to the government, but the Information Ministry said it ought to have been offered to ordinary Iraqis "for dragging them into wars."

At least 60 demonstrators were in police custody in Iran's capital as antigovernment protests resumed after a week's lull. An estimated 3,000 Tehran University students and supporters spilled off campus, demanding a national referendum on the nation's political future. Hundreds of relatives and friends of those arrested were clamoring for their release outside the city's central police station.

Striking tanker captains and the directors of Venezuela's state oil company were replaced by President Hugo Chávez after a weekend of new violence in the opposition-led strike to force him from office. Chávez also sent reinforcements to guard facilities of Petroleos de Venezuela, which was dragged into the fray late last week. Meanwhile, strike organizers declared three days of mourning, one for each of the antigovernment protesters who died Friday when security forces fired into their march in Caracas.

Terrorist bombs that exploded within minutes of each other in four crowded Bangladesh movie houses were not the work of Al Qaeda, a senior government official insisted. The blasts in the city of Mymensingh Saturday killed 18 people and injured more than 200 others. A fifth bomb, discovered in a theater in nearby Gaibandha, was defused by experts. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and authorities said the arrests of four radical critics of the government were unrelated.

Fire crews said they'd need two more days to put down a massive blaze in the Old Town section of Edinburgh, Scotland, a World Heritage site. By noon Sunday, the fire had gutted 13 properties in the 15th century Grassmarket and forced evacuation of more than 100 people.