Albania official resigns over deadly blasts

Albania's defense minister resigned Monday, two days after a series of explosions at a weapons depot near the capital killed at least 16 people and injured nearly 300 others.

Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu stepped down after the main opposition Socialist Party demanded that he and conservative Prime Minister Sali Berisha resign over the blasts.

The blasts began Saturday and continued for 14 hours, raining artillery shells down on nearby villages and destroying more than 300 homes. Berisha has said the explosions were an accident that occurred during work to destroy excess ammunition stockpiled since Albania's communist past.

Health Minister Nard Ndoka announced another death in the explosions in the village of Gerdec, about six miles outside of Tirana, raising the toll to 16. He said 52 people were still being treated in hospitals, six of them in serious condition.

At least 10 others remained missing.

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Suicide bomber kills 3 soldiers, 4 Afghans

A suicide car bomber attacked a group of international troops at a bazaar in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing three NATO soldiers and four Afghans, officials said.

Two Danish troops, a Czech special-forces soldier and an Afghan translator were killed in the attack in the Gereshk district of Helmand province.

Provincial police Chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said the suicide car bomb killed three Afghan civilians and wounded seven others.

Four soldiers also were wounded in the attack, a NATO spokesman said.

London

Tuberculosis cases dip, but not enough

The fight against the global tuberculosis epidemic has slowed to a crawl, the World Health Organization said in a report Monday.

The worldwide rate of TB infection has been declining for several years. But between 2005 and 2006, the rate of new cases fell by less than 1 percent, far less than the annual decrease of 5 to 7 percent sought by health officials.

At the same time, drug-resistant TB is growing faster than ever, the WHO said last month.

Independent health experts criticized the WHO's TB policy as too passive, and urged a more proactive strategy.

In 2006, there were an estimated 9.2 million new tuberculosis cases and 1.5 million deaths, the WHO said in its report, which was based on government data from 202 countries and regions.

India and China have the most cases, followed by Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria, the report said.

Jerusalem

Olmert: We'll keep building on lands

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday he will keep building in parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem that Israel wants to keep in a future peace deal, angering the chief Palestinian negotiator.

Olmert's public stance on continuing construction in disputed areas threatened to further weaken moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is in a power struggle with the militant Islamic Hamas group that governs Gaza.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed Monday in Jerusalem after a break of several weeks because of a spike in violence, but the session ended in discord.

Olmert and Abbas agreed to restart the talks at a Mideast conference called by President Bush last November. Olmert said whatever the terms of a peace treaty, Israel plans to keep Har Homa and older neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 war. About 180,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem.

Seattle Times news services