Female suicide bomber kills 15 in Baqouba

The latest in a wave of female suicide bombers killed 15 people and wounded more than 40 others Sunday near a heavily fortified courthouse and government outpost in central Baqouba, Iraqi security officials said.

Seven of the dead and 10 of the wounded were Iraqi police officers.

The bombing was the most devastating of four attacks by guerrillas in Diyala province Sunday that left at least 25 people dead and close to 60 wounded.

Seoul, South Korea

Protesters scuttle revised beef pact

Beef imports from the United States will not resume soon, officials said Sunday, after a new import deal failed to quell South Koreans' concerns about mad-cow disease and their policy grievances with President Lee Myung-bak.

The revised beef accord, announced Saturday, will be put on hold "until the people's concerns subside," Hong Joon-pyo, a senior governing party official, said Sunday.

The office of Susan Schwab, the U.S. trade representative, confirmed the new deal and characterized it as a "transitional measure to improve Korean consumer confidence in U.S. beef."

But more than 10,000 people rallied in central Seoul over the weekend to oppose the imports, even from just younger cows, as the new accord requires.

Vienna, Austria

IAEA investigators face daunting task

U.N. nuclear sleuths looking into allegations that Syria is hiding secret atomic activities expressed hope Sunday that a fact-gathering trip to Damascus will be the start of a thorough investigation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors face a daunting task. Syrian officials are expected to place strict limits on where they go and what they see during their three-day visit.

Still, IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen spoke optimistically of the mission's chances before boarding the flight to Damascus on Sunday, saying he and his two-man mission hoped to start to "establish the facts this evening."

Damascus denies working on a secret nuclear program. But Washington hopes the U.N agency team will find evidence backing U.S. intelligence that a structure destroyed by Israeli war planes in September was a nearly completed plutonium-producing reactor.

Kabul, Afghanistan

NATO forces shell targets in Pakistan

NATO forces in Afghanistan shelled guerrillas in Pakistan in two separate episodes Sunday, as escalating insurgent violence appeared to be eroding the alliance's restraint along the border.

NATO officials said they had retaliated against rocket and artillery attacks launched by militants from sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan, where they operate freely. The insurgents' attacks, launched into Khost and Paktika provinces, killed four Afghan civilians, at least two of whom were children, Afghan and NATO officials said.

The firing by NATO forces into Pakistani territory followed a U.S. airstrike on a Pakistani border post earlier this month that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers. The Pakistani government denounced the strike, and the U.S. government expressed regret, but it is still not entirely clear what happened.

Also: The Sri Lankan military says fighting in the embattled northern region has killed 33 ethnic Tamil rebels and six government soldiers.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara says the latest round of battles took place in the Mannar, Vavuniya, Welioya and Jaffna areas in northern Sri Lanka throughout Sunday.

Seattle Times news services