BERN – Switzerland has released one of eight people detained four months ago in connection with last year’s suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, blamed on Al Qaeda.

ASMARA – The European Union has urged Eritrea to accept United Nations mediation in a border row with Ethiopia that has stalled a peace process between the Horn of Africa neighbors, following a two-year war.

ISTANBUL – A Turkish state security court on Sunday charged four suspects in connection with a suicide bomb attack on a Masonic lodge in Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul.

JERUSALEM – More than two-thirds of Israelis are in favor of “targeted killing operations,” after the assassination of Hamas’ spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, according to a poll by Tel Aviv University.

TEHRAN – The head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, began talks with Iran on Tuesday, pressing for greater cooperation over the country’s nuclear program.

ANKARA – Turkish police are holding around 50 people after a series of operations against an outlawed Marxist group, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front, or DHKP-C, which has been on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations since May 2002.

GEORGETOWN – The Iranian Director of the International Islamic College of Advanced Studies in Guyana, Muhammad Hassan Abrahemi, was kidnapped outside the college on April 2, police said.

ADDIS ABABA – African governments spend an estimated $4.7 billion of donor funds every year to hire foreign experts, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

GENEVA – The UN refugee agency has suspended weekly convoys carrying refugees from Iran to southern Iraq, due to heightened fears of hijacking and other security risks.

JERUSALEM – Israel put its clocks forward by one hour early on Wednesday – the beginning of summertime. Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will make the same switch on the night of April 15-16.

ADDIS ABABA – Remains of 87 young people killed in southeast Ethiopia’s Adama-Nazereth town and surrounding areas after the toppling of the regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam 13 years ago were removed on Monday for reburial.

KHARTOUM – Four men convicted of armed robbery in Sudan’s war-torn western Darfur region have been sentenced to amputation of their right hands and left legs. Sudan is governed by Islamic Sharia law.

KHARTOUM – Sudan has said it will press for the release of its remaining nationals held without charge at a US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following the freeing of a first two.

KHARTOUM – Sudan’s Islamist opposition leader Hassan Al Turabi has been charged with offenses against the state, and is to be tried before a special court, it was reported on April 3.

ALGIERS – A small earthquake measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale was recorded in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Algeria on April 3. Two quakes were recorded the previous week in the same zone.

ADDIS ABABA – The UN has said that food shortages in the Horn of Africa will soon be brought under control, thanks to food aid and good harvests. Some 7.2 million Ethiopians will need food aid in 2004.

BAGHDAD – The US-led coalition has shut down highways from Baghdad to Jordan due to ongoing military activities in the area, which includes the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.

RIYADH – The head of Riyadh prisons has been fired and several other officials have been suspended for dereliction of duty during a fire that killed 68 people in Saudi Arabia’s largest prison, Al Hair, last September.

KUWAIT CITY – The Kuwaiti cabinet has accepted in principle a parliamentary proposal to amend the election law, a key step for political reforms, after initially rejecting such moves.

VIENNA – Austrian anthropologists have found evidence suggesting that Roman gladiators were fat vegetarians, who bore scant resemblance to the modern Hollywood image of such fighters.

JERUSALEM – Israel’s attorney-general has decided not to indict deputy premier Ehud Olmert over a corruption case that could still see Prime Minister Ariel Sharon charged with accepting bribes.

MOSCOW – Russia has criticized the United States for applying sanctions to two Russian companies accused of assisting Iran in its alleged nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. 

ISTANBUL – A Turkish state security court on Sunday charged four suspects in connection with a suicide bomb attack on a Masonic lodge in Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul.

WASHINGTON – A US-funded Arabic-language radio network, Radio Sawa, has become the top broadcaster in Morocco’s two largest cities, Rabat and Casablanca, according to a survey by global media ratings giant AC Nielson.

MOSCOW – The pro-Moscow president of war-torn Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, has promised an amnesty to the rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, saying he would personally guarantee Kadyrov’s security if he surrendered.

DOHA – Qatar is preparing to try two Russian secret agents for the murder of a former Chechen president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, in Doha in February, despite repeated demands by Moscow that they be freed.

LONDON – Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is being held at a US military base in Qatar, according to Britain’s Independent newspaper. At the end of last month, Saddam’s wife reportedly left Syria for Qatar.

BRUSSELS – The diamond industry in the Dutch city of Antwerp has filed a complaint against a radical Belgian Muslim leader, Ahmed Azzuz, for saying that the world’s gem capital could be attacked by the radical Palestinian group, Hamas.

WASHINGTON – Jordanian authorities last week thwarted a plan by members of Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network to attack the US embassy in Amman, US State Department officials said on Tuesday.

TEHRAN – Iranians have been warned not to travel to Iraq, following reports that an Iranian Shia pilgrim was killed and another injured in clashes in Najaf on Sunday.

KARACHI – Pakistani police captured an Islamic militant who allegedly recruited suicide bombers to attack Western targets in the country. Sohail Akhtar was seized with eight other suspected militants during a raid in the southern port city Karachi on Monday.

KABUL – Thirteen Taliban prisoners, including some Pakistani nationals, have been released from Sherberghan prison in northern Afghanistan, following a decree from President Hamid Karzai.

KABUL – Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for a jihad against drugs, saying the industry threatened the stability of his government. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium.

DENVER – A mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan was hit by an earthquake on Monday, measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the remote region.

SOFIA – A Libyan court will hand down a verdict on Thursday in the case of seven health workers – six Bulgarians and a Palestinian – accused of infecting 426 children in a Benghazi hospital with HIV, the virus that causes Aids.

KUWAIT CITY – A leading Kuwaiti Islamist, Hamed Al Ali, has been questioned by public prosecutors investigating allegations that he taught bomb-making to worshipers at a mosque in Jahra, west of the capital.

SANTIAGO – Twelve Lebanese nationals who had been investigated for links to Al Qaeda have been given 15 days to leave Chile. The group worked as importers of secondhand clothing in Iquique, 1,500 kilometers (940 miles) north of Santiago.

MANAMA – Bahrain is extending its position as rotating chair of the Arab summit, which was due to expire in March, following the postponement of the gathering last month.

RIYADH – A US-made Saudi F-5 military aircraft crashed on Monday during an exercise in Taef in western Saudi Arabia. The pilot survived.