Mexico City

President apologizes for racial comment

President Vicente Fox reversed course Monday night and apologized for saying that Mexicans in the United States do the work that blacks won’t.

Fox repeatedly refused to back away from his Friday comment, saying his remark had been misinterpreted. But later, in telephone conversations with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton the president said he “regretted” the statement.

“The president regretted any hurt feelings his statements may have caused,” the Foreign Relations Department said in a press statement. “He expressed the great respect he and his administration has for the African-American community in the United States.”

Jackson told Fox that he was sure the president had no racist intent, and suggested the two meet to discuss joint strategies between blacks and immigrant groups in the United States. Fox agreed to set up a visit to Mexico by Jackson, Sharpton and a group of American black leaders.

Afghanistan

Gunmen kidnap Italian CARE worker

Four armed men dragged an Italian woman working for CARE International from her car in the center of Afghanistan’s capital on Monday in a bold kidnapping that reinforced fears that militants or criminals are copying tactics used in Iraq.

The kidnapping followed warnings from security agencies that foreigners might be targeted in response to the arrest of a suspect in the kidnappings of three U.N. election workers last year.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of aid worker Clementina Cantoni, 32, or demands for her release, said police and the agency’s director, Paul Barker.

Kuwait

Parliament gives women qualified political rights

Parliament extended political rights to Kuwaiti women Monday, but religious fundamentalists who opposed women’s suffrage succeeded in attaching a clause requiring future female politicians and voters to abide by Islamic law.

It was not clear whether that meant a strict dress code or just separate polling stations and election campaigns.

Some women activists expressed concern about the vague restriction, but others refused to let it dampen their joy.

“I am overexcited. I can’t believe this,” said Rola Dashti, who said she would run in the next parliamentary elections, in 2007.

Dashti, a U.S.-educated economist, said the clause probably meant separate polling stations and not an imposition of a strict Islamic dress code that allows only women’s face, hands and feet to show.

Islamic conservatives called the law a “bombshell” and accused the government of bowing to foreign pressure. They believe women’s participation in politics contradicts Islam’s teachings and complain it will allow women to mix with men freely.

Israel

Right-wing protesters create traffic jam

In the biggest and most disruptive protests yet against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to relinquish the Gaza Strip, thousands of right-wing demonstrators snarled evening rush-hour traffic across the country Monday, using burning tires and their own prone bodies to block highways and urban thoroughfares.

Police detained some 300 protesters, some of them barely in their teens.

As the mid-August pullout date approaches, opponents are adopting ever more strident methods. In addition to mounting coordinated highway protests, demonstrators threw stones at police in Jerusalem, a tactic unused until now.

And for the second day in a row, Israeli bomb squads rushed to investigate two suspicious parcels planted in public places and found to contain only rocks — and notes protesting the pullout. The withdrawal “will blow up in our faces,” one message said.

Puerto Rico

Elderly couple disappear during cruise

An elderly Vietnamese-American couple disappeared during a Caribbean cruise and they probably fell overboard, officials said Monday in San Juan.

The 71-year-old man and 67-year-old woman aboard the Carnival Destiny ship disappeared sometime Thursday between the islands of Barbados and Aruba, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Omar Barrera said.

“The only logical conclusion it that they somehow fell overboard,” Barrera said.

Investigators found a few of the couple’s belongings out in the open on the third floor of the ship, Barrera said. There were no signs that it was a case of suicide.

Two Coast Guard planes conducted an unsuccessful search for the missing couple and the Coast Guard asked passing ships to be on the lookout.

Nepal

Soldiers search for abducted children

Nepalese troops resumed their search Monday for hundreds of children taken hostage by Maoist insurgents in the mountains of western Nepal, officials said.

The exact number of children taken by the rebels was unclear. On Sunday, soldiers recovered about 600 children taken from village schools Friday in the remote Tahanu and Palpa districts, more than 100 miles west of Katmandu. Hundreds more were being held; their whereabouts were unknown.

In the past, rebels have taken students for a few days to indoctrinate them with their revolutionary ideology, and then returned most of them safely.

The rebels have fought since 1996 to overthrow Nepal’s constitutional monarchy and replace it with a communist state.