American soldiers destroyed two buildings being used by insurgents in a town in Anbar province, Iraq, killing six militants, two women and a toddler, the military said Sunday. It was the latest of several recent raids during which women or children have been killed or wounded as U.S. forces attacked insurgents in residential areas. In some of the attacks, the U.S. command accused the militants of taking over buildings for use as safe houses and of using civilians as human shields.
Gen. Augusto Pinochet clung to life in a Chilean hospital Sunday after suffering a heart attack and being administered last rites. Just eight days earlier, the 91-year-old former strongman, whose 17-year dictatorship carried out thousands of political killings, widespread torture and illegal killings, took full responsibility for the actions of his 1973-90 regime after long insisting any abuses were the fault of subordinates. Pinochet underwent an emergency angioplasty to restore the flow of blood to his heart, and doctors described his condition as "serious but stable." They planned to perform bypass surgery later in the day, state television reported.
President George W. Bush is open to some of the major changes in Iraq policy that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested in a classified memo days before he resigned, the White House's national security adviser said Sunday. The memo discussed putting "substantial" U.S. forces near Iraq's borders with Iran and Syria, withdrawing American troops from vulnerable positions and moving to a quick reaction status and "taking our hand off the cycle seat" through the start of "modest withdrawals" of U.S. and coalition forces.
President Hugo Chavez sought another six-year term Sunday in an election that once again highlighted Venezuela's class divisions and could further entrench one of the Bush administration's most defiant Latin American critics. Chavez led in various pre-election polls over Manuel Rosales, a tough-talking former state governor who has galvanized the opposition by promising to unseat a leader he accuses of steering Venezuela toward Cuban-style, one-man rule.
Britain's senior law enforcement official said Sunday an inquiry into the death of a former KGB agent had expanded overseas, and a U.S.-based friend of the former agent said he told police the name of the person he believes orchestrated the poisoning. Yuri Shvets said he had known the poisoned ex-spy, Alexander Litvinenko, since 2002 and spoke with him Nov. 23, the day Litvinenko died following his exposure to a rare radioactive element, polonium-210.
