Paris

Crazy Horse kin want strip club renamed

Descendants of the American Indian warrior Crazy Horse want a change in the famed Paris strip club named after him. Alfred Red Cloud, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, delivered a letter Saturday to the operators of the Crazy Horse saloon asking them to change the club’s name.

“The name is a sacred name to our people. Nobody uses that name back home, even our own people,” Red Cloud told reporters outside the posh club near the Champs-Elysees.

“I’m not trying to close the establishment down, I just want the name changed,” he said.

The Crazy Horse Paris was established in 1951 and is well-known for adult entertainment. The Oglala Sioux warrior fought against the U.S. military in the 1800s.

Afghanistan

Two U.S. soldiers killed; vote count resumes

A bomb killed two American soldiers and wounded three others in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Saturday, and an attack in an eastern province killed three children and two others on the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The attacks in the wake of historic presidential elections earlier this month were a reminder of the insecurity still threatening the democratic experiment three years after the fall of the Taliban.

Ballot counting from the vote gathered speed after a one-day break, and interim leader Hamid Karzai streaked ahead of his rivals in early returns.

Gaza Strip

Israel says incursion struck blow to militants

Israel’s military said Saturday that its 17-day incursion into the northern Gaza Strip struck a heavy blow against Palestinian militants routinely firing makeshift rockets into the country’s southern region.

Palestinian residents, however, accused the army of wanton destruction, saying the broad military offensive targeted densely populated areas never used to launch rockets. At least 110 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, were killed, making this the bloodiest military offensive in northern Gaza in four years of fighting.

Early today the Israeli army moved elsewhere in the volatile territory, as 10 tanks and three bulldozers entered the Rafah refugee camp, near the Egyptian border. No casualties were reported.

Serbia-Montenegro

Thousands mourn for 15 killed in bus accident

Tens of thousands of mourners marched in the rain to a Kosovo cemetery Saturday for the burial of 15 students killed in a bus crash as they were returning from a field trip to neighboring Albania.

The coffins, draped in Albanian flags and covered with wreaths, were lowered into side-by-side graves not far from the students’ high school in Malisevo.

The teenagers’ bus collided with a car and tumbled over a cliff in Albania on Thursday. The driver of the car was also killed, and 30 other passengers on the bus were injured.

Vatican City

Pope gets thanks on 26th anniversary

Thousands of well-wishers have showered Pope John Paul II with greetings for the 26th anniversary of his election as pontiff, many of them thanking him for speaking out against pre-emptive war, his spokesman said Saturday.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Vatican Radio in an interview that while many of the greetings came from VIPs, several thousand were sent by “common people, some Catholic, some not, some not even Christians.” The spokesman said they thanked the pope “for his teaching on specific subjects like peace, family, dialogue, tolerance, human dignity.”

In the run-up to the U.S.-led Iraq war, John Paul spoke out repeatedly against war, insisting dialogue was required to bring peace.

India

Congress party wins election in key state

India’s Congress party and its allies triumphed over rival Hindu nationalists on Saturday in a key state election that was seen as a test of the popularity of Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of the country’s governing coalition.

The Congress party-led alliance won 139 seats in the Maharashtra state legislature, defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena coalition, which won 118 seats.

“It’s big win for the Congress and its allies. It reaffirms the leadership of Sonia Gandhi,” said Mahesh Rangarajan, a New Delhi-based political analyst.