Fierce fighting between Taliban rebels and Afghan security forces today left 18 insurgents and three others dead, a day after the U.S. military pounded suspected rebels in airstrikes that killed as many as 20, officials said.

Three U.S. troops were slightly wounded when a bomb exploded near their armored Humvee in Paktia province yesterday, said U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts.

A Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, claimed that his fighters had assassinated a kidnapped Afghan police chief and five of his men for collaborating with the U.S.-led coalition.

Calgary, Alberta

Flooding forces evacuation of homes

Flooding forced the evacuation of about 1,500 people in Calgary and swamped or cut off hundreds of homes yesterday after two rivers overflowed following days of heavy rain.

Some evacuees were allowed to return home later when waters began to recede. A state of emergency remained in force for a second day as officials feared the Elbow and Bow rivers that merge in the city — the center of Canada's oil industry — could swallow more homes in eight vulnerable neighborhoods.

The rain that has pounded the western city of nearly 1 million people for more than a week finally stopped yesterday.

Two major roads close to the downtown core were closed as water gushed against bridge decks.

Mexico City

Former leader to face genocide charges

A Mexican prosecutor said yesterday he intends to file long-awaited charges this week against a former president and others for a 1968 massacre of students by government troops.

Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, boosted by last week's Supreme Court ruling that former President Luis Echeverria can be tried in another case, said new charges of genocide and kidnapping against Echeverria and several others were "completely assembled" and would likely be filed by week's end.

Echeverria, 83, was Interior Minister and head of national security at the time of the 1968 bloodbath, which occurred days before the Olympics opened in Mexico City. Officials said about 30 people were killed by police and soldiers at a rally in the capital, but witnesses put the death toll as high as 300.

Echeverria denies that he orchestrated the violence.

Yangon, Myanmar

Supporters want Nobel laureate freed

With placards in Bangladesh and speeches across Europe, supporters of detained Myanmar democracy heroine Aung San Suu Kyi celebrated the Nobel laureate's 60th birthday yesterday by calling for her freedom.

But at home, the ruling junta arrested about a dozen Suu Kyi followers who wore T-shirts bearing her photo and the slogan "Set her free" while attending prayers at the capital's golden Shwedagon pagoda. They were freed only after they removed the shirts.

While Suu Kyi — who has spent almost 10 of the last 16 years under confinement — remained locked up at her residence, members of her National League for Democracy gathered at their headquarters several miles away for a traditional ceremony, offering food to Buddhist monks.

The military has ruled Myanmar — also known as Burma — since 1962. The current junta called elections in 1990 but refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory.

ALSO

Japan quake: A moderately strong earthquake rattled northern Japan today, shaking buildings and spooking residents in an area where the country's deadliest temblor in a decade struck last year. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

From Reuters and Associated Press reports