IRAQI BOY IS INJURED
Iraqi boy is injured
In a Baghdad hospital, an Iraqi mother comforts her son, who was injured in a suicide car bomber attack. A barrage of coordinated bomb and rocket attacks on eastern Baghdad neighborhoods killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 200 within half an hour Thursday, police and hospital officials said. The latest spasm of violence -- which included explosives planted in apartments, car bombs and several rocket and mortar attacks on mainly Shiite neighborhoods in the capital -- came even as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Iraqi forces should have control over most of the country by year's end. President Bush said Thursday in Salt Lake City that the war against Islamic militants was like last century's fight against Nazis and communists and that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would lead to its conquest by America's worst enemies.
Copper strike ends
SANTIAGO, Chile -- Workers at Chile's La Escondida mine -- responsible for about 8 percent of world copper output -- on Thursday voted to end their 25-day strike, a labor union official reported. Francisco Aedo said 1,607 workers voted to accept a new 40-month contract offered by the company, Minera La Escondida. An additional 121 voted to continue to strike, and one worker voided his vote. The strike at the world's largest privately owned copper mine roiled world markets for the metal, often setting off buying and selling waves.
No testimony comingin Skakel case
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A man who implicated two friends in the 1975 murder that sent Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel to prison has refused to testify, prompting a prosecutor Thursday to accuse him of making up the account. Gitano "Tony" Bryant invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at his deposition last week in Miami and does not plan to testify at upcoming hearings on whether Skakel deserves a new trial, said Joel Denaro, his attorney. Skakel's attorneys have said, in court papers, that Bryant implicated two of his friends in the bludgeoning death of 15-year-old Martha Moxley. Skakel, who was 15 and a neighbor of Moxley's at the time of the murder, was convicted in 2002 of bludgeoning Moxley with a golf club and is serving 20 years to life in prison.
Judge snuffs ideaby tobacco companies
WASHINGTON -- A group of tobacco companies asked a federal judge on Thursday to let them continue marketing "low tar" and "light" cigarettes overseas, two weeks after she banned the practice in the United States. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled Aug. 17 that the nation's top cigarette makers violated racketeering laws and deceived the public for years about the health hazards of smoking. Kessler ordered the companies to stop using terms such as "light" on their products, saying such cigarettes are no safer than others. She also ordered the companies to publish in newspapers and on their Web sites "corrective statements" on the adverse health effects and addictiveness of smoking and nicotine. The request comes in the wake of a Massachusetts Department of Public Health report that found nicotine levels in cigarettes have risen about 10 percent in the past six years, making it harder to quit and easier to get hooked.
Security council approvesU.N. authority in Sudan
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution Thursday that would give the United Nations authority over peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as Sudan's government gives its consent -- which it has so far refused to do. The resolution is meant to give more power and funding to a force, now run by the African Union, that has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur. The violence has killed more than 200,000 people and continues to worsen.
Associated Press