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COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan government forces killed at least 18 Tamil Tiger rebels and lost five of their own soldiers as they bombarded guerrilla-held areas in the north of the island from land, sea and air, the military said on Sunday.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A roadside explosion in Mogadishu on Sunday killed at least 14 people, most of them women who were sweeping a street in the Somali capital, witnesses said. Nearly 50 people were wounded.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda confirmed on Sunday that Abu Khabab al-Masri, a chemical and biological weapons expert, was killed with three other militants in a suspected U.S. air strike in Pakistan's border region last week.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A global AIDS conference that opens in Mexico City on Sunday is meant for people infected with HIV, but transsexual sex worker Elma Delea cannot get inside.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Talks between Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition on ending the political crisis resumed on Sunday after adjourning early last week, South Africa's presidency said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi parliamentarians failed on Sunday to pass a law on provincial elections, putting the date of important polls in doubt and leaving unresolved a political standoff that has stoked ethnic tensions.

CHANDIGARH, India (Reuters) - At least 145 people, mostly women and children, were crushed to death under the feet of thousands of pilgrims in a stampede at a temple in northern India on Sunday, police said.

GILGIT, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least nine climbers have perished on K-2 in Pakistan in the worst day for mountaineering on the world's second-highest peak, and the toll could rise further, expedition organizers said on Sunday.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Pakistan's prime minister said there was no evidence linking his country to attacks on India, adding such accusations had hurt the peace process, a report said on Sunday.

GAZA (Reuters) - About 30 pro-Fatah Palestinians who fled to Israel after fierce clashes in the Gaza Strip were sent back to the Hamas-controlled enclave on Sunday and the Islamist group said its forces immediately detained them.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved the release of five Palestinian prisoners as part of a swap deal with the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group that brought the bodies of two Israeli soldiers home.

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb struck a U.S.-led military convoy outside the Afghan capital on Sunday, killing one soldier and wounding another, the military said.

TIZI OUZOU, Algeria (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded near a police station in a town east of Algiers on Sunday, wounding 25 people including four policemen, the government of the OPEC member country said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's embattled prime minister, Gordon Brown, suffered another blow on Sunday with the publication of a memo in which Tony Blair heaps scorn on his successor's performance in office.

MILAN (Reuters) - Concerns about China's human rights record and its polluted air have dampened public interest around the world in the Beijing Olympics, a research group said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed eight people and wounded 14 others in a Sunni Arab area of Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi police said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese and foreign citizens wishing to protest during the Beijing Olympics must apply five days beforehand and not harm China's vaguely defined "national interests", a Games security official said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's commerce minister has called the collapse of trade liberalization talks a heavy blow, telling state media his country will brace for more trade friction and pursue closer regional cooperation.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to arrive in India on Sunday to cement ties with New Delhi, just weeks after a suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul underscored the security tensions in the region.

Joe Bavier has reported on West and Central Africa for four years. He joined Reuters as Kinshasa correspondent in 2006. In the following story, he describes a trip to Central African Republic's porous eastern border with Sudan in the aftermath of a wave of raids by Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army.