Around The World

Green rejects Nader endorsement\nMILWAUKEE -- The Green Party nominated Texas attorney David Cobb as its candidate for president Saturday, rejecting Ralph Nader's efforts to secure the party's formal endorsement and likely access to the ballot in key states like Wisconsin and California.\nNader, the party's candidate in 1996 and 2000, had told Green officials months ago he would not accept the party's nomination for president, preferring to build a coalition of third-party groups and independents rather than running under one banner.\nStill, he openly courted their formal endorsement as a means to get on the ballot in the 22 states and Washington, D.C., where the party has a ballot line.\nBut 408 delegates voted for Cobb on the second ballot to give him the nomination.\nIran to resume building uranium centrifuges\nTEHRAN, Iran -- Iran will resume building centrifuges for its nuclear program on Tuesday despite international objections, but will continue to hold off enriching uranium, the foreign ministry said Sunday.\nThe head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said he hopes Iran will reverse its decision, a setback in international attempts to resolve the standoff with Tehran over its nuclear program.\n"I hope that this decision is of a temporary nature. I hope it will be reversed," Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a news conference in Moscow, where he was attending a conference on nuclear power.\n"Iran needs to do the maximum to build confidence after a period of confidence deficit. I look at this whole suspension of enrichment as part of this confidence building," he said.\nIran had suspended the building of centrifuges, along with the enrichment of uranium, under international pressure, part of the IAEA's attempts to determine whether Iran's nuclear program is peaceful or aims to produce weapons, as the United States contends.\nIsraeli raid leaves 7 Nablus militants dead \nNABLUS, West Bank -- A Palestinian militant group pledged Sunday to unleash an "earthquake" of vengeance on Israel for killing seven fugitives, including the most wanted militant in the West Bank, during a raid in Nablus\nIsraeli troops found the militants after a gunman they were chasing through a house Saturday slipped into a secret underground tunnel where they were all hiding. The killing of the fugitives, from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, was the main goal of a three-day operation in Nablus, the army said.\nThousands of revelers parade for gay pride in Europe \nBERLIN -- Hundreds of thousands of revelers wearing everything from full Victorian garb and designer gowns to skimpy leather and construction hats celebrated gay pride in cities around the world Saturday.\nBerlin saw one of Europe's largest parades. To the sound of thumping techno music, the city's openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit led floats in the 12th annual celebration of Christopher Street Day, commemorating the start of the gay rights movement in New York's Greenwich Village in 1969.\nPolice estimated that about 200,000 people snaked their way from the chic Kurfuerstendamm boulevard to the landmark Victory Column, while organizers said the crowd swelled beyond 500,000.\nWowereit told the cheering crowd that while the parade was "fun and colorful," the gay community still was marginalized.\nPakistani prime minister resigns\nISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali announced his resignation and the dissolution of his Cabinet on Saturday, ending months of speculation that his relationship with the country's military ruler was strained.\nThe leader of the ruling party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, was nominated to replace Jamali.\n"I resigned from my post as prime minister today," Jamali told reporters after a gathering of the PML-Q party.\nJamali said he hoped the decision would help the nation's political process, but did not elaborate. The country has been on a long and bumpy road back to democracy since President Gen. Pervez Musharraf staged a bloodless 1999 coup. Musharraf remains the nation's ultimate powerbroker.\nRice says U.S., Libya discuss aid for Sudan\nWASHINGTON -- Facing resistance by Sudan's government, the Bush administration has turned to Libya to help mount a $100 million relief operation for the starving and harassed people of Darfur in western Sudan, a White House official said Sunday.\nPresident Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said "there is probably more to come" than the initial $100 million already dedicated to the region where the U.S. Agency for International Development estimates 350,000 might starve by next spring.\nDarfur has emerged as a major humanitarian crisis because of a 16-month struggle between regional black tribesmen from the region and government-backed ethnically Arab militias. U.S. officials have called it "ethnic cleansing," an effort to force out the desolate region's African majority. The United Nations says more than 30,000 have been killed and 1 million displaced.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell, now with Bush in Turkey for a NATO meeting, is to fly to Sudan this week and go to Darfur to talk with relief workers and displaced people.