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HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe, grappling with a record 2.2 million percent inflation, has introduced a new 100-billion-dollar bank note in a bid to tackle rampant cash shortages, the central bank said Saturday.

SINAHOTA, Bolivia - Soaring food prices may achieve what the United States has spent millions of dollars trying to do: persuade Bolivian farmers to sow their fields with less potent crops than cocaine's raw ingredient.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown demanded Sunday that Israel cease settlement construction and promised more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led troops and Afghan forces killed nine Afghan police Sunday, calling in airstrikes and fighting on the ground for four hours after both sides mistook the other for militants, Afghan officials said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military says American soldiers have killed two armed relatives of a provincial governor during a raid against al-Qaida in Iraq.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces shot dead the 17-year-old son and another relative of the governor of northern Iraq's Salahuddin province in a raid on Sunday, local officials said.

LAREDO, Spain - Four bombs exploded in northern Spain on Sunday — including one outside a bank — causing damage but no injuries, officials said. A caller earlier warned about the explosives, saying he was speaking on behalf of Basque separatists.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government to locals and investors from "friendly" countries, a state newspaper reported on Sunday.

PARIS (Reuters) - Ingrid Betancourt urged Colombian rebels to free all hostages as she addressed a rally in the French capital on Sunday that was part of a series of demonstrations around the world to protest against kidnappings.

BEIJING— London has Big Ben, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge and now Beijing has an iconic structure that's likely to identify the city forever.

BAGHDAD - A provincial vote intended to satisfy Sunni Arab demands for more influence must be delayed, election officials said Sunday, proposing to hold the vote in December rather than October.

LONDON (AFP) - One of five Britons kidnapped in Iraq more than one year ago has committed suicide, the group holding them claimed in a video to a Sunday newspaper here, prompting condemnation from Gordon Brown.

BEIJING - With the Olympics less than three weeks away, Beijing began restricting car use and limiting factory emissions on Sunday in a final drastic effort to clear its smog-choked skies.

ROME - A man beat his 4-year-old daughter's head against the stone base of a Rome monument in front of tourists and a police officer, leaving the child in a coma, police said Sunday.

Violence unhinges the country's once booming financial markets as investors worry about stability and some grow nostalgic for the Musharraf dictatorship

SOUTHPORT (AFP) - Padraig Harrington of Ireland won the British Open at Royal Birkdale on Sunday.

GENEVA - Some pre-negotiation jabbing turned into a potentially damaging diplomatic incident Saturday when Brazil's foreign minister said rich countries' deception in trade talks reminded him of tactics used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

OTTAWA (AFP) - Lobster-loving Canadians are trying to persuade a fish market in easternmost New Brunswick province to set free a huge crustacean believed to be more than 100 years old, its owner said Friday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The international community must put economic and political pressure on Iran in order to help reach a breakthrough in the crisis over Tehran's nuclear program, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs said Sunday.

SYDNEY, Australia - An elderly woman was attacked by a large kangaroo on a farm in Australia and was lucky to be alive after a pet dog leapt to her aid, her son said Saturday.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Parties in Zimbabwe have reached consensus on holding substantive crisis talks, a UN representative said Sunday, while sources said the agreement may be signed within 24 hours.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by stoning, activists said Sunday.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam's Artis zoo says a baby red panda adopted by a zookeeper's cat after being rejected by its mother has died.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's lawyers on Sunday tore through the testimony of a US millionaire at the heart of a graft probe of the embattled premier in an effort to discredit him.