President George W. Bush reaches out to allies this week for help in quelling violence in Iraq and Afghanistan in a burst of diplomacy from a Baltic summit of NATO partners to Mideast talks with Iraq's prime minister. Bush was slated to leave today on another overseas trip as pressure builds at home for a change in his administration's Iraq strategy amid deepening tensions and violence in that country.
Tens of thousands of protesters chanted "No to the pope!" and waved anti-Vatican banners Sunday in Istanbul, Turkey, in a defiant display of the pro-Islamic anger that could await the pontiff on his first papal trip to a mostly Muslim nation. About 25,000 people filled a square in a working-class district at a rally organized by an Islamist political party whose leaders have denounced the pope's remarks in September that linked violence and Islam.
The Swiss approved a law Sunday to give $800 million in economic aid to the 10 newest EU members, continuing their close copperation with the European Union. Some 53.4 percent voted in favor of the measure, which will benefit the eight former communist and two Mediterranean countries that joined the bloc in 2004, while 46.6 percent of voters opposed the payments. Turnout was 44.4 percent.
U.N. peacekeepers have succeeded in keeping the peace at an Israeli-Lebanon border, three months into their mission of enforcing a cease-fire. No shooting incidents have been reported across the international border since the force, called the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, began beefing up with the arrival of French forces Aug. 19, shortly after a U.N. cease-fire ended this summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war.
