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Blair, Brown unite in bid to avert disaster
BRITAIN: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown finally appear
to be pulling together ahead of Thursday's elections threatening
historic defeat for Labour in Scotland, coalition government in
Wales and the loss of hundreds of council seats in England. p
1m secular protesters take to the streets in Istanbul
TURKEY: A political crisis was looming in Turkey yesterday after pro-secular protesters flooded central Istanbul to demand the resignation of a government they fear is leading Turkey toward Islamic rule. p
Tension rises in Basra as car bomb kills 5
IRAQ: A car bomb exploded in the southern city of Basra last night, killing five people and wounding 10, police said. p
Other World Stories
Iran may take part in Iraq stability summit
IRAN: Iran will attend a conference of key powers including the US this week that will focus on stabilising Iraq, a meeting Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari said might be a turning point for regional co-operation to ease the violence in Iraq. pOlmert awaits report on war in Lebanon
MIDDLE EAST: A commission examining the way the Israeli government and armed forces waged last year's Lebanon war is to release an interim report today that could determine prime minister Ehud Olmert's political future. pPoles vow to boycott 'Orwellian' witch-hunt
POLAND: A new law in Poland requires public figures to say if they were ever spies, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Warsaw pLegendary cellist laid to rest in Moscow
RUSSIA: Cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich was buried yesterday close to late president Boris Yeltsin. Their widows leaned on each other and wept. pSarkozy courts centrist, extreme-right vote
FRANCE: At his last rally in Paris before next Sunday's presidential run-off, right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy reached out to centrist and extreme right-wing voters, promising to "introduce a little proportional representation in the National Assembly or in the Senate". pRuling party gains as fraud mars Nigeria polls
NIGERIA: Nigeria's ruling party won more seats and consolidated its grip on power in several states after rescheduled polls marred by very low turnout and electoral fraud, early results showed yesterday. pHope and water in short supply as Darfur camps become way of life
SUDAN: The war-weary residents of south Darfur's regional capital woke yesterday to the sound of a fighter jet roaring overhead. pWe should be grateful for Yeltsin's blow to communism
Opinion: Credit for the fall of communism usually is given to two sets of actors. On the one side, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Paul II, whose relentless pressure caused a hollowed-out system to collapse. On the other side, conventional mythology credits Mikhail Gorbachev. pIn short
A roundup of today's other stories in brief. p
