Around The World

Singer R. Kelly indicted, arrested\nCHICAGO -- R&B star R. Kelly was arrested today in Florida after Chicago authorities filed child pornography charges alleging that he appears on a videotape having sex with an underage girl. "I can confirm that he was arrested in Florida," Kelly spokesman Allan Mayer said. A spokeswoman for the sheriff's office in Polk County, Florida, would only say that Kelly had been arrested there. Kelly was indicted in Chicago on 21 counts of child pornography earlier in the day after officials said their investigation of a videotape showed the Grammy winner having sex with an underage girl. The videotape purporting to show Kelly and an underage girl has been circulating widely in major cities, and has been a topic among R&B fans and musicians.\nPowell wants new leadership in Iraq\nWASHINGTON -- The Bush administration wants new leadership in Iraq even if Saddam Hussein allows U.N. inspectors to resume their search for weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday. President Bush has declared Saddam a menace and pledged to remove him from power, although the administration says it has not decided how or when that goal will be achieved. \nBush has said all options are available, including a military campaign to overthrow Saddam if he continued to deny admission to the weapons inspectors. Powell told ABC the issue of inspectors is a "separate and distinct and different" matter from the U.S. position on Saddam's leadership.\nDeath toll climbs in Columbian civil war fighting\nMEDELLIN, Colombia -- Rescuers sent Saturday to an isolated corner of Colombia evacuated more than a dozen people wounded during battles between rebels and rival paramilitaries that killed 68 civilians, including 38 children, authorities said. Most of the 68 civilians were killed when homemade mortars slammed into a church in the village of Bojaya, Juan Gonzalo Lopez, health secretary for Antioquia state, told reporters late Saturday. The village is 235 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota, and borders Antioquia state. Authorities blamed the attack on the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.\nCuba frees noted political prisoner\nHAVANA -- Vladimiro Roca, Cuba's best known political prisoner, was freed early Sunday just two months short of completing his five-year sentence. The release comes one week before former President Carter arrives in the communist country for five-day visit.\nNigeria's president says at least 106 die in plane crash\nKANO, Nigeria -- Nigeria's president said Sunday at least 106 people died when an airliner crashed shortly after takeoff, slamming into buildings and mosques in a working-class neighborhood of the northern city of Kano. Four passengers survived. The Nigerian EAS airlines jet that crashed Saturday was carrying 77 people -- 69 passengers and eight crew members -- and dozens are believed to have been killed on the ground. Nigeria's sports minister, Ishaya Mark Aku, was among those passengers killed.\nRugged Afghan terrain hinders coalition troops\nBAGRAM, Afghanistan -- A handful of the coalition troops sweeping through eastern Afghanistan have been knocked out of commission by the region's mountainous terrain, but none from contact with al-Qaida or Taliban fighters, military officials said Sunday. Three British soldiers were evacuated Saturday to Bagram air base from a mountain in the southeast of the country, Royal Marines spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Harradine said. Two of them were suffering from altitude sickness and the third had dysentery.\nSinn Fein wins Belfast mayor's post for the first time in histroy\nBELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The IRA-linked Sinn Fein party won the post of Belfast mayor for the first time Wednesday, another important step away from its terrorist past and toward a mainstream political future. Furious Protestant politicians walked out of Belfast City Council after the election of Sinn Fein candidate Alex Maskey, a former Irish Republican Army prisoner who nearly died in an assassination attempt 15 years ago. He became the city's second Roman Catholic mayor in recent years following nearly two centuries of Protestant dominance.