The party that governed Mexico for 71 years won a strong victory yesterday in the country's largest state, regarded as a gauge of political preferences for next year's presidential elections, according to early unofficial results.

While victories in Mexico state and in the western state of Nayarit would bolster the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, it doesn't necessarily guarantee the party's return to the presidency it lost in 2000 to Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

PRI and PAN's potential candidates all trail Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the presidential polls for 2006.

Jerusalem

Cabinet rejects plan to delay withdrawal

Israel's Cabinet yesterday soundly defeated an attempt to delay the planned Gaza Strip withdrawal by three months.

The 18-3 decision was the first of two votes this week on proposals to postpone the pullout, scheduled to start next month. The parliament, or Knesset, is expected Wednesday to defeat a separate measure seeking a delay.

The proposals stoked fresh tensions between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his main political foe, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who joined two other right-wing ministers in backing the proposed delay. Netanyahu, under pressure from rightist backers to resist the withdrawal, has indicated he would sit out the Knesset vote rather than back the current timetable — a move that Sharon aides said could lead to his dismissal from the Cabinet.

Bogotá, Colombia

Colombian troops arrest rebel figure

Colombia has captured a Marxist rebel who engineered the smuggling of 300 tons of cocaine, the army said yesterday.

Ferney Torres, 38, was arrested on Saturday after being wounded by soldiers as he tried to escape an army checkpoint in the southern province of Caqueta.

Officials said Torres' capture was a bigger blow to the 41-year-old rebel force known as FARC than the 2004 arrest of Nayibe Rojas, one of the business brains behind the guerrilla group.

Rojas was sent to the United States to face drug charges. Washington is likely to request Torres' extradition as well.

Kinshasa, Congo

Soldier's death sends troops on rampage

Several hundred Congolese soldiers went on a rampage in the relatively stable west of the country yesterday, beating up civilians and looting homes after finding a colleague hacked to death, officials said.

The soldiers were former members of the People's Armed Forces of Congo (FAPC), one of many rebel factions meant to have been integrated into Democratic Republic of Congo's new military after a five-year civil war officially ended in 2003.

Kemal Saiki, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Congo, said the soldiers had gone out shooting in the streets, beating people up and looting houses. There was no word on casualties.

New Delhi, India

Floods' toll high in western state

Monsoon floods in India's western Gujarat state inundated more than 7,200 villages, left about 175,000 people homeless and killed at least 131 people over the past week, officials and news reports said yesterday.

Also, one of the world's 359 remaining Asiatic lions was found drowned Friday near Gujarat's Droneshwar dam, down river from its home in the Gir wildlife sanctuary, according to the Hindustan Times newspaper.

Soldiers were helping police and civilian rescue workers in the area, while air-force helicopters aided in rescue missions and food drops. Most of those left homeless in Gujarat are poor villagers who also lost their cattle and belongings.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Reuters, Knight Ridder Newspapers and Los Angeles Times