India: Hindu activist killed in clash with police

Hindu activists on Sunday fought police trying to enforce a ban on large gatherings imposed after India’s worst religious violence in a decade. One activist was killed and 32 people, mostly police, were injured.

Police and paramilitary forces were attacked when they tried to break up the crowd at a train station in Paldi, 12 miles south of Calcutta. Police responded by beating the group back with wooden sticks, lobbing tear gas and finally opening fire, said local government administrator Alapan Bandopadhyay.

Dozens of Hindu hard-liners were defying a ban on congregations of more than four people. The ban was imposed after hundreds of people were killed in Hindu-Muslim clashes in the western state of Gujarat less than two weeks ago.

Colombia: Security tight as voters elect new Congress

Colombians embittered by rebel violence voted under heavy security Sunday for a new Congress, a body which could be called on to give the U.S.-backed military bigger budgets and a freer hand to combat leftist insurgents.

Three years of fruitless peace talks collapsed last month, and the guerrillas launched a wave of attacks against the South American country’s infrastructure boosting support for hard-line candidates for Congress and in May’s presidential elections.

Many Colombians voting Sunday said they had had enough of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and other illegal armed groups.

Up for grabs were all 268 seats in the Colombian Congress a body that has itself been targeted in the civil war. The FARC has made it a policy to kidnap lawmakers, hoping to trade them for imprisoned rebels. It currently holds five member of Congress, several of whom were placed on the ballot anyway.

Paris: Health-care workers demand more money

Thousands of doctors and health professionals marched Sunday to press for higher pay and other demands, the latest in a series of protests that began four months ago.

General practitioners from all corners of France and its Caribbean territories were joined by dentists, gynecologists, nurses, ambulance drivers and pharmacists.

They marched from a Left Bank square near the Health Ministry across the Seine to the Place de la Bastille. Police estimated there were about 13,000 protesters; union organizers claimed there were 50,000.

“Politicians must know that health is a priority, that the quality of care has a price,” said Claude Maffioli, president of the Confederation of French Doctors, one of two unions leading the protest.

Practitioners are demanding an increase in the base fee they can charge, from $15.50 to $17.70 per visit, which is the amount covered by state health insurance. They are also demanding that the fee for house calls be raised from $18.60 to $26.60.

Republic of Congo: Presidential race first since wars’ end

President Denis Sassou-Nguesso was poised for an easy victory Sunday in elections he said would restore democracy after back-to-back civil wars.

But the party of opposition leader Andre Milongo, who withdrew his candidacy Friday, slammed the poll as a “masquerade” aimed at legitimizing a post that Sassou-Nguesso seized by force five years ago.

Milongo’s pullout left Sassou-Nguesso facing six challengers, none of whom was considered a serious threat.

Sassou-Nguesso, 59, first took power in a popular revolt in 1979, heading a one-party Marxist state for 13 years.

Republic of Congo, an oil-rich country bordering the much larger Congo, gained independence in 1960.