AP - Opposition leaders called on the West not to recognize the results of Belarus parliamentary elections after opponents of authoritiarian President Alexander Lukashenko failed to win any seats.

AP - Rafael Correa's avowed quest for an "equitable, just" Ecuador won a major boost as voters approved a new constitution that will help the leftist president consolidate power and enable him to run for two more consecutive terms.

AP - Gunmen targeting an Afghan provincial council chief killed four of his bodyguards, while a Taliban leader died in an airstrike in central Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

AP - Two Taliban assassins on a motorbike shot and killed a senior policewoman as she left for work in Afghanistan's largest southern city Sunday and gravely wounded her son.

AFP - An explosion in Ethiopia's eastern Somali province, which local authorities believe was a terrorist attack, killed at least four people Sunday, police said.

AP - Ecuadoreans voted Sunday on a new constitution that would significantly broaden leftist President Rafael Correa's powers and let him run for two more consecutive terms.

AP - Iraq's prime minister on Sunday sought safeguards for small religious communities in this mainly Muslim country as Christians protested parliament's decision to stop setting aside seats for minorities on provincial councils.

AFP - Lee Westwood surrendered the British Masters title at The Belfry on Sunday when he lost to Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano at the third hole of a play-off.

AP - As a heavily armed U.S. destroyer patrolled nearby and planes flew overhead Sunday, a Somali pirate spokesman told The Associated Press his group was demanding a $20 million ransom to release a cargo ship loaded with Russian tanks.

AP - U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Sunday accused Iran of trying to interfere with a new security pact between Iraq and the United States, and said Americans need to view Iraq with "a sense of strategic patience" because the stakes in the region are so high.

AP - An "evil wind of extremism" is threatening Israel's democracy, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Sunday, after a pipe bomb attack wounded a professor critical of Israel's settler movement.

AP - Three Chinese astronauts emerged from their capsule Sunday after a milestone mission to carry out the country's first spacewalk, showing off China's technological know-how and cementing its status as a space power and future competitor to the United States.