World

Terrorists in Iraq ushered in the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, with a rash of new attacks over the weekend that killed at least 14 more people, most of them policemen. They also targeted five Christian churches in Baghdad (one of them above) with homemade bombs, inflicting property damage and keeping many worshippers away from Sunday services. Meanwhile, the Oil Ministry said terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group has distributed pamphlets warning that it will attack any foreign truck bringing refined motor fuel into Iraq. Such trucks are rarely guarded until they reach storage depots in the cities. Against that backdrop, heavy fighting was reported between American forces and insurgents in Fallujah, and Britain's Defense Ministry said it had been asked by the US to redeploy hundreds of troops from southern Iraq to reinforce the Fallujah campaign.

The closest rival of interim President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan refused to concede defeat in the historic national election. Still, former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni told the Associated Press he's well-positioned to lead the opposition if a careful investigation into the voting process determines that Karzai won the Oct. 9 vote fairly despite allegations of balloting irregularities. With fewer than 600,000 votes counted, Karzai had an unofficial 63 percent to 19 percent lead over Qanooni.

Despite his acquittal on a charge of treason, Zimbabwe's opposition leader said it was too soon to celebrate the verdict. On Friday, a court that normally sides with the government said it had heard insufficient evidence at trial to convict Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe. He could have been sentenced to be executed if found guilty. But the government promptly announced it will appeal the ruling. Tsvangirai also still confronts a second charge: that he called for mass protests to oust Mugabe, who narrowly defeated him in a 2002 election widely seen as fraudulent.

A long-awaited report due Monday is expected to recommend that the 77 million-member Anglican Communion agree not to ordain openly homosexual bishops and that affiliated churches deemed to have broken that covenant be suspended. But newspapers in London said the report, from a commission appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to resolve divisions over homosexuality, won't seek the resignation of the Rev. Eugene Robinson, who was ordained last year as bishop of New Hampshire.