Iraq

Mosul attack kills two Iraqi troops

Guerrillas attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi convoy in Mosul on Wednesday, killing two Iraqi National Guardsmen only a day after a similar attack in the restive northern city left three Guardsmen dead.

U.S. forces detained six suspects in the Jan. 4 slaying of the Baghdad regional governor and six of his bodyguards, the military announced Wednesday. Two of those detained in the early morning raid Tuesday were directly involved in the attack, said Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, assistant commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, which controls Baghdad.

On Wednesday, in the city of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed Jawad Ibrahim, an assistant to the mayor, as he was fixing his car, police said.

France

EU constitution approved by Parliament

The European Parliament gave its overwhelming endorsement to the European Union’s first-ever constitution Wednesday and urged EU governments to quickly follow suit.

The EU assembly, meeting in Strasbourg, France, voted 500 to 137, with 40 abstentions, to ratify the new treaty, which is to take effect in 2007 if unanimously ratified across the 25-nation bloc.

The 732-member parliament called on EU governments to move quickly to sell the constitution, which faces opposition in several EU-skeptic countries.

The parliament called on EU governments to ensure “all possible efforts be deployed to inform European citizens clearly and objectively about the content of the constitution.”

Geneva

Polio cases increase sharply in 2004

The number of worldwide polio cases last year rose dramatically after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria spawned a resurgence of the disease across Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The number of cases worldwide in 2004 reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.

Most of the cases were in Africa, largely in Nigeria. Hard-line Islamic clerics in Nigeria’s northern Kano state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria’s Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.

The boycott triggered an outbreak across the continent, infecting children in formerly polio-free countries and hurting WHO-led attempts to eradicate the crippling disease by Dec. 31, 2005.