Volcano oozes lava, spews clouds of ash

Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano billowed ominous clouds of ash Saturday as a giant lava dome bulged off of its southern slope, an official said.

Ash blasted more than 650 yards into the air and deep, sluggish lava oozed out of the cauldron, said volcanologist Dewi Sri, who was monitoring activity at the crater in Indonesia's Central Java province.

The lava dome had grown tenfold in less than a week, forming a 90-yard-wide glowing bubble, she said. The level of alert at the 9,700-foot peak remained just below the highest stage.

Authorities tried to persuade remaining residents to leave. Many were reluctant to go without their livestock, often their only source of income. Thousands have left voluntarily to regional shelters.

Sudan may allow U.N. peacekeepers

Sudan's government said Saturday that its peace accord with Darfur's main insurgent group could pave the way for it to welcome U.N. peacekeepers, as mediators worked to persuade the rest of the fractured rebel movement to join the process.

The peace agreement, reached Friday in Abuja with one branch of the Sudan Liberation Army after two years of sporadic negotiations, aims to end ethnic bloodshed that has killed at least 180,000 people in three years and left 2 million displaced.

The suggestion that it could lead to a deployment of U.N. peacekeepers overturns previous rejections by Khartoum, which so far has allowed only African Union peacekeepers.

Leader refutes Cheney's criticism

Russia's foreign minister rejected Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Kremlin, saying on Saturday that his country expected to be respected as an equal partner in global affairs.

Sergey Lavrov said Cheney's remarks were unfounded and suggested that Cheney was misinformed, after the vice president said the Kremlin was backtracking on democracy and using energy to blackmail former Soviet states.

"I thought that a person who holds such a state job has the entire amount of objective information, but apparently his aides or advisers had let him down," Lavrov said, according to the statement posted on the Foreign Ministry's Web site.

It was the most direct response to Cheney's remarks, indicating the Kremlin's annoyance and concern about deepening mistrust between Russia and the U.S.

Also

Singapore's ruling party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections Saturday, signaling continuity in the city-state's trademark mix of economic success, social stability and tight political controls. Final results showed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's People's Action Party winning 82 of 84 seats in Parliament.

Compiled from The Associated Press