■ Iraq
US shuts down highways
The US-led coalition has shut down the highways from Baghdad to Jordan due to ongoing military activities in the area that is home to the rebel towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, the coalition yesterday. "The highways from Baghdad to Jordan will be closed indefinitely due to military activities," the US consulate said. Residents in Fallujah said several people were killed or wounded early yesterday when US troops fought insurgents in the town, 50 km west of Baghdad. A journalist said US forces sealed all the roads leading to Fallujah, barricading residents inside the restive town.
■ Algeria
Voting set for Thursday
Algerians vote Thursday in a presidential election dominated by an intense rivalry between Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his former right-hand man, Ali Benflis. The four other candidates are Trotskyite Louisa Hanoune, the first woman to run for president in Algeria or anywhere else in the Arab world; radical Islamist Abdallah Djaballah; Said Sadi, a secularist with strong backing from Algeria's Berber minority and Ali Fawzi Rebaine, a nationalist. Bouteflika ran alone for president in 1999 after all six other contenders pulled out, charging fraud. Afterwards he launched a reconciliation program intended to end the country's civil war. Thousands of Islamic fighters have laid down their arms but the insurgency has not been contained completely.
■ Russia
Annan arrives for talks
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Russia on Sunday for a three-day visit focusing on the war in Iraq and unrest in Kosovo, amid efforts by Moscow to raise the UN's profile in resolving both conflicts. Annan was due yesterday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and newly-appointed Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The talks would focus on ways of strengthening the legal framework for peacekeeping operations carried out under a UN mandate, foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said.
■ Serbia
Eleven children feared dead
Eleven children were feared dead after a bus taking a party of Bulgarians home from a school trip to Dubrovnik plunged into a swollen river in a ravine in Serbia, police said yesterday. Fast-flowing waters in the 50m-deep gorge of the River Lim, in the mountains between Serbia and Montenegro, were hampering rescue efforts. The bus from the Bulgarian town of Slistoft had 48 children and teachers aboard, with two drivers.
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