VoteKansas.org

Daniel Flynn, correspondent for West and Central Africa, joined Reuters in 1998 and has worked in Venezuela and Spain. In the following story he describes his experience of the trial of Simon Mann in Equatorial Guinea.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaves on Monday for the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Georgia and perhaps Poland on a trip that illustrates their deepening U.S. ties despite Russia's objections.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Three Colombians were killed early on Monday when a 747-200 cargo plane crashed into their house near the capital city Bogota while all eight crew members on board the aircraft survived, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination next month at a Denver football stadium that can hold more than 75,000 people after the political party decided to open the event to a broader audience, officials said on Monday.

SUKHUMI, Georgia (Reuters) - The death toll from a bomb explosion in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on Sunday has risen to four, separatist officials said on Monday, further worrying the West with fears the violence could worsen.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain took a veiled swipe at Democratic rival Barack Obama over trade on Thursday in the final leg of a Latin American trip aimed at showcasing the Arizona senator's foreign policy credentials.

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - Italy on Monday proposed increasing margin requirements on futures markets to deter speculative buying of oil, which Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said could reach $200 a barrel.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Having clinched crucial political support, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Japan on Monday for a G8 summit where he may formally press ahead with a civilian nuclear deal with the United States.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani investigators scouring the scene of a weekend suicide bomb attack on police found a severed head on Monday as the leader of the ruling party said his government would do everything to stop the bombers.

LUKAVAC, Bosnia (Reuters) - Three sets of bones are neatly displayed next to each other in aluminum cases in a basement in northeast Bosnia: they are three of four brothers killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday his country would not stop enriching uranium and rejected as "illegitimate" a demand by major powers that it do so, the official IRNA news agency reported.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe urged the world on Monday to accept President Robert Mugabe's re-election and said any move to impose U.N. sanctions on his government would hurt everyone involved.

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb hit the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing 41 people and wounding 139, in an attack Afghan authorities said was coordinated with foreign agents in the region, a likely reference to Pakistan.

PARIS (Reuters) - Freed Franco-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt, a devout Catholic who prayed daily during six years in captivity, will visit the shrine of Lourdes in southwest France this week, a source close to her said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect on Monday of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - World leaders raised the prospect of more sanctions against Zimbabwe on Monday unless quick progress is made to end a political crisis after a violent election that extended President Robert Mugabe's 28-year rule.

MADRID (Reuters) - Eight people have been taken to hospital, mainly for bruising and concussion, on the first day of the annual bull running festival in the northern Spanish town of Pamplona on Monday, organizers said.

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - Moscow and Washington should keep up dialogue despite failing to overcome differences on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe, a key irritant in ties, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.

ROME (Reuters) - Italian trains, buses and subways ground to a halt on Monday as workers staged a nationwide strike to demand a renewal of their expired labor contracts.

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday kept up his tradition of informal relations with fellow world leaders by summoning Prime Minister Stephen Harper with a brusque "Yo Harper!"