New Zealand's second-biggest city, Christchurch, is facing an enormous clean-up after being struck by the country's worst earthquake in 80 years.  The magnitude 7 quake devastated parts of Christchurch early Saturday.



Christchurch awoke Sunday to another grim day as shell-shocked residents assess the damage inflicted by one of the country's most powerful earthquakes.

Mayor Bob Parker is urging residents to stay indoors.

"This is not a good time to go out, as curious as you may be, and have a look around if it means driving out onto the streets because we need to keep them free for emergency services," Parker advised. "Use common sense; emergency services are flat out at the moment. The assessment is underway. Take sensible precautions, but don't go out sightseeing. Check on your neighbors. Do the things that communities do so well at times like this."

Authorities say it is a miracle no one was killed after disaster struck Saturday before dawn, when most people were still asleep.  A small number of serious injuries have been reported.

Roads and bridges have been left in ruins and troops are expected to be deployed to help in the emergency effort.  Power and water supplies have also been disrupted.  Authorities say the clean-up will be long and expensive.  The damage bill is estimated at about $1.5 billion.

A night time curfew was imposed in parts of Christchurch, while schools offered emergency shelter to those left homeless.

A series of aftershocks have unnerved a wary population.

New Zealand sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a vast area of unpredictable seismic activity.  The South pacific country of more than 4 million people experiences more than 14,000 earthquakes each year.  Most are minor but occasionally nature displays its destructive power.

This weekend's earthquake is among the 10 strongest the country has ever recorded.

The Taliban on Sunday announced plans to disrupt Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, scheduled for September 18.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told reporters that the balloting is just for the benefit of the foreigners who he says are occupying the country. And he urged the Afghan people to boycott the election.

Some 2,500 candidates are competing for 249 seats in Afghanistan's lower house of parliament.

The Taliban's threat to derail the election follows plans by the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to open peace talks.

On Saturday, Mr. Karzai called the creation of the High Peace Council a "significant step" in efforts to end a war that is nearing the end of its ninth year. The council is to include former members of the Taliban, leading Afghan civilians and women.

The council's formation was approved by Afghan leaders and tribal elders in June. But so far the Taliban has shown little interest in any peace negotiations.

And Taliban attacks continue. NATO says two coalition soldiers have been killed in insurgent violence in southern Afghanistan.

One of them belonged to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The second was not identified.

A Japanese journalist, freelancer Kosuke Tsuneoka, who was reportedly detained by insurgents in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz several months ago has been released and is now at the Japanese embassy in Kabul. He is said to be in good condition.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

Thousands of mostly Muslim protesters rallied around Indonesia Saturday in opposition to an American church's plan to burn copies of the Koran on September 11.

During the weekend rallies in Indonesia, cities protested an event planned by a small Florida church to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

Religious leaders of all denominations have condemned the plan by the Dove World Outreach center in Gainesville, Florida, whose pastor, Terry Jones, has written a book called Islam is of the Devil.  The phrase also appears on t-shirts and a Facebook page promoting the event at the church estimated to have about 50 members.

The chairman of the Islamic group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia that planned the protests, Rokhmat Labib, says the plan to burn the Islamic holy book is a provocation.

He says if the event happens Muslims will certainly fight back, and he cannot predict what form the retaliation will take.

Relations between Christians and Muslims are generally peaceful in secular Indonesia.  But in recent months hardline groups have staged attacks against churches, stirring concerns of escalating conflict that would damage relations between Christians and Muslims in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

The Pluralism Care Movement, a group comprising interfaith organizations and representatives from moderate Christian and Muslim centers, has called for the U.S. government to prevent the burning.  It says the reaction from Indonesia should be one that shows the country's tolerance for religious differences.

Labib sees it differently.  He says Muslims must not stay silent when their faith is threatened.

He says Hizbut Tahrir does not accept the argument that the reason for burning the Koran is because it is the source of Islamist violence.

Labib says Muslims do not have any problem with Christians as long as they do not spread their beliefs in Muslim areas.  And since Muslims are not forcing their beliefs on Christians, he says there is no reason why they should feel threatened.

Suicide bomb blasts have killed at least 12 people at a military recruitment center in central Baghdad.  More than 36 others were wounded in the strike, which witnesses say was carried out by at least two attackers. 

Witnesses describe a scene of devastation in the area around the blast site, and hospital officials say they were treating numerous wounded.

The strike took place at the same recruitment center where a suicide attack killed at least 59 people last month.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks, coinciding with a drawdown in U.S. troops.  As of September first, the United States says it is no longer engaged in combat operations, renaming the mission one of advice and assistance to Iraqi forces.

The Iraqi government last week placed the country on highest alert.

The Basque separatist group ETA has issued a video declaring a cease-fire.

The video, posted Sunday on the website of the Basque newspaper Gara, shows three masked militants making a statement in the Basque language saying they were ending armed operations.

One of the rebels, reading from a text, says ETA decided several months ago to lay down its arms to achieve its goals through a democratic process.  It was not immediately clear if the cease-fire is permanent or temporary.

The Spanish government did not immediately respond to the ETA statement.

The separatist group last announced what it called a "permanent cease-fire" in March 2006.  But nine months later ETA claimed responsibility for a powerful car bomb at Madrid's Barajas airport that killed two people.  ETA linked that bombing to frustration over lack of progress in peace talks with the Madrid government.

ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths during a four-decade campaign for an independent Basque state in northeastern Spain and southwestern France.

The European Union and the United States consider ETA a terrorist organization.

A suicide bomber plowed his explosive-filled car into a military base in the Russian republic of Dagestan, but was stopped before he could reach an area where many soldiers were sleeping.

A Defense Ministry spokesman in Moscow says Sunday's attack killed three soldiers and wounded more than 30.  Earlier, officials in Dagestan said at least five soldiers had been killed.

Both accounts said several of the wounded were in critical condition.  Officials in Moscow said some of the injured soldiers were being flown to a military hospital in Rostov-on-Don to receive specialized treatment.

Officials in Dagestan said the attacker was aiming for an area where soldiers are housed in tents, but that some soldiers forced the bomber to crash into a military truck instead.

Officials said a separate bomb exploded near a car carrying investigators to the base.

Sunday's attack comes one day after militants tried to assassinate Dagestan's minister for ethnic policy, information and foreign relations.

Police said Bekmurza Bekmurzayev was being driven to work Saturday when a bomb planted underneath his car exploded.

Bekmurzayev survived the blast, which killed his driver and wounded a bodyguard.

Dagestan is part of Russia's North Caucasus, a mostly-Muslim region where shootings and bombings are reported almost daily. Russian authorities blame most of the attacks on Islamic militants. Some of the violence also is connected to organized crime and clan rivalries.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP.

Torrential rains in Guatemala have triggered landslides across the country, killing at least 20 people.

Authorities say one mudslide engulfed a bus on the Inter-American Highway Saturday, killing at least a dozen passengers and injuring 20 others.  Officials say the bus was about 80 kilometers outside the capital, Guatemala City.

Elsewhere in Guatemala, officials say a mudslide buried a house in western Quetzaltenango province, killing four people.  Officials say at least four others were killed in separate incidents across the country.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has declared a national emergency in the wake of the flooding and landslides.  He said weeks of heavy rains have caused as much as $500 million in damage.

Tropical weather systems in both the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico have left hillsides throughout Guatemala and southern Mexico saturated with water.  Meteorologists have forecast more rain throughout the region Sunday.

Heavy flooding in the Mexican Gulf state of Tabasco has forced thousands of people from their homes.  Authorities in neighboring Chiapas and Oaxaca states, which border Guatemala, and the state of Veracruz have also reported serious flooding.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

Israel is optimistic about new peace talks with the Palestinians despite deadly violence in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is prepared for a "historic compromise" with Israel's Arab neighbors.

Briefing his Cabinet on last week's launch of direct peace talks with the Palestinians in Washington, Mr. Netanyahu said he believes the Arab world is ready for peace.

He said a creative, new approach is needed to resolve the core issues of the conflict that have caused the failure of negotiations in the past. Those issues include the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements and the future borders of a Palestinian state.

Mr. Netanyahu called for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to continue with him on the path toward peace, security and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians.

But Mr. Abbas only rules the West Bank, and one of the key obstacles to the negotiations is the Palestinian militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip. Hamas killed four Israeli settlers in a roadside ambush last week to express opposition to the peace talks, and on Saturday it fired a rocket at Israel.

Israel responded with air strikes on three Gaza smuggling tunnels. At least two Palestinians were killed.

Many observers say that as long as the West Bank and Gaza remain divided, the creation of a Palestinian state will
be impossible.

AP - The armed Basque separatist group ETA, under pressure from political allies to renounce violence and decapitated repeatedly by the arrests of its leaders, announced another cease-fire Sunday, suggesting it might turn to a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.

AP - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.

AP - The Taliban vowed Sunday to attack polling places in Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, warning Afghans not to participate in what it called a sham vote.

AP - While a fire warms their campsite, the icy feeling between Cristina Nunez Macias and her mother-in-law is as palpable as the cold Atacama desert.

AFP - Pakistan's latest match in their controversial tour of Britain ended in a five-wicket Twenty20 defeat by world champions England at Sophia Gardens here on Sunday.

AP - Just days after Mideast peace talks began in Washington, the first major crisis is already looming: Israel hinted Sunday it will ease restrictions on building in West Bank settlements, while the Palestinian president warned he'll quit the talks if Israel resumes construction.

The Vatican on Sunday raised the possibility of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to spare the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

The Basque regional government says a cease-fire announcement by the separatist group ETA is "absolutely insufficient" because the group has not renounced violence or announced its dissolution.

The disaster that will likely keep the miners underground for months also has shaken the fault lines in their families above. Some squabble over who should get the miners' August wage.

Torrential rains from a tropical depression have caused mudslides in Guatemala, killing at least 36 people — most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.

At least five people were killed and 35 wounded Sunday when a suicide bomber attacked troops at a firing range in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan, sources said.