China, Taiwan officials talking

Beijing played down the brief exchange between President Hu Jintao and Vice President-elect Vincent Siew on the sidelines of an economics forum in southern China's Hainan province, but observers suggested it broke new ground.

Siew's Nationalists just won a landslide election based in part on promises to improve relations with the mainland. China considers the island part of its territory and has threatened to reclaim it by force if it ever declares independence. - Los Angeles Times

Deadly mosque bombing in Iran

The semi-official Fars news agency said the explosion in the city of Shiraz went off as a cleric was delivering his weekly speech against extremist Wahhabi beliefs and the outlawed Baha'i faith. The force of the explosion shook houses more than a mile away.

Although bomb attacks are rare in Iran, the predominantly Shiite Muslim country has faced several ethnic and religious insurgencies that have carried out sporadic, sometimes deadly attacks in recent years. - AP

Olympic torch goes to Tanzania

Journalists and Tanzanian sports officials watched as a Chinese Olympic official stepped off a plane and handed the torch over to Dar es Salaam's mayor, Adam Kimbisa. "It is a great honor and privilege for Tanzania to host this torch. Don't worry, all preparations are all set," Kimbisa said.

On Friday, Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai said she had pulled out of the torch relay in Tanzania to protest China's human-rights record. Major demonstrations against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet have followed the torch's relay around the world on the way to Beijing for the Summer Olympics. - AP

Elsewhere:

Sri Lankan soldiers pushed into Tamil Tiger-held territory in the embattled north yesterday after a daylong battle killed 30 guerrillas and six soldiers, the military said. Fighting has sharply increased in recent weeks, with the government vowing to retake Tamil Tiger-controlled areas.

Turkish investigators have found the body of an Italian artist last seen in March hitchhiking in a wedding gown and have charged a man with murder, officials and reports said yesterday. Police found the strangled body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, in a forested area near the town of Gebze, the governor's office for the northwestern city said.