Briefly

CHINA

Officials expect closer Vatican ties

BEIJING — A landmark performance by the China Philharmonic Orchestra at the Vatican will help improve understanding between the two sides, China said.

China is ready to improve relations with the Holy See, and music is the “bridge of communication,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a news conference yesterday.

The 75-member orchestra performed for Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday.

Ties between the Vatican and China’s communist government have been strained for decades, but Mr. Qin said Beijing would like to see that change.

The pope has said improving relations with China is a priority of his papacy.

China’s officially atheist Communist Party cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, and the two sides have never restored formal ties.

AFGHANISTAN

Suicide bomber kills only himself

KABUL — A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up close to a convoy of foreign troops in Kabul yesterday, but only wounded three civilians, officials said.

The bomber in a white Toyota Corolla died in the blast in the capital’s western outskirts shortly after a convoy carrying foreign troops passed by, said a regional police chief Zulmay Khan.

Three civilians, including a woman and two men, were wounded in the blast, he said. There were no reports of casualties among those in the convoy.

Militants trying to weaken the grip of U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai have turned to roadside and suicide bomb attacks against heavily armed foreign troops. Last year, militants launched more than 140 suicide missions. Most victims in these attacks have been civilians.

More than 1,200 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count.

SRI LANKA

Journalists allowed to cover elections

VALAICHCHENAI — A wave of protests by journalists and rights groups yesterday prompted the Sri Lankan government to back off a pledge, made earlier in the day, to bar foreign journalists from covering weekend elections in the Eastern Province.

The election pits a coalition of the ruling party and former rebels against opposition parties in a region that the government said it had freed from the control of Tamil Tiger rebels last year.

Yesterday, an Associated Press reporter and a photographer were stopped at a checkpoint in the eastern town of Valaichchenai and ordered to leave the province and head straight back to the capital, Colombo. Their license plate was then distributed to checkpoints in the area to ensure that they complied.

Maj. Gen. Palitha Fernando, a senior official in the Defense Ministry, said any foreigner not registered as an election observer was barred from the volatile province during the polls.

Gen. Fernando later said there was a misunderstanding, journalists would be allowed to cover the election, and the reporters were allowed to return to the east.

From wire dispatches and staff reports