■ United States
Bush gets Saddam's gun
US President George W. Bush keeps in his White House offices a trophy of one his high points in the Iraq war -- the pistol that Saddam Hussein held when soldiers pulled him from his underground hideaway. Military specialists mounted the sidearm, and soldiers who helped in the deposed Iraqi president's capture presented it to the president, the White House said on Sunday. The president keeps the gun in a small study adjoining the Oval Office. Major-General Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said Saddam had the loaded pistol on his lap but didn't move to use it on Dec. 13.
■ Russia
Huge Tsar Bell rings again
Russia's largest church bell rang on Sunday in the sacred Orthodox town of Sergei Possad for the first time since it was torn down from its tower during a 1930 Stalinist purge against religion. The huge Tsar Bell, which is 4.55 meters high and weighs 72 tons, was hoisted into the tower of the Trinity St. Sergius monastery in April. It rang for 5,000 worshippers on Sunday at the monastery 35 miles northeast of Moscow. The bell was cast at a shipyard in Russian President Vladimir Putin's home city of St. Petersburg and bear the president's name in a centuries-old tradition that the tsar's name was engraved on the bell. Putin's administration has been criticized for its authoritarian tsarist nature.
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