World Scene

IRAQ

British death toll reaches 100

BAGHDAD — A roadside bomb killed a British soldier yesterday in southern Iraq, the 100th Briton killed since the war started nearly three years ago, while two German hostages were shown on a new video as kidnappers threatened to kill them if Germany doesn’t cease cooperation with the Iraqi government within three days.

Elsewhere, police found the bodies of 16 young men, handcuffed and blindfolded, in separate parts of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff will receive further treatment for their injuries received from bomb blast in Iraq at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

DENMARK

Gazans burn flags despite apology

COPENHAGEN — Thousands of Palestinians protested against Denmark yesterday for allowing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad to be published, and Arab ministers called on the Copenhagen government to punish the newspaper that printed them.

Anger has spread across much of the Muslim world.

The offices of the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, were evacuated yesterday after a bomb threat, but were given the all-clear after police with dogs searched the building.

The newspaper apologized Monday, but that was not enough for the Gaza protesters, who fired bullets into the air and burned Danish and U.S. flags.

PAKISTAN

NATO wraps up quake relief mission

ISLAMABAD — NATO wrapped up its 90-day mission to the earthquake-battered parts of Pakistan yesterday, saying it had completed its goal of providing relief and helping survivors endure the harsh winter in Kashmir.

The relief mission was the alliance’s first in a non-NATO territory. Pakistan asked the 26-member organization to join the operation two days after the Oct. 8 quake struck Pakistani Kashmir and the country’s northwest, killing about 87,000 people and injuring thousands.

PHILIPPINES

Troops kill 18 communist rebels

SANTA IGNACIA — Philippine troops, backed by rocket-firing helicopters, killed at least 18 communist rebels in a northern farming town yesterday in their bloodiest clash in months, officials said.

In a separate battle, Philippine marines fought a group of al Qaeda-linked rebels on southern Jolo island yesterday, killing one Abu Sayyaf militant in a security sweep ahead of joint exercises between U.S. and Philippine troops next month, the military said.

BURMA

Military adjourns statute convention

RANGOON — Burma’s military government adjourned a constitution-drafting convention yesterday after almost two months of deliberations, delegates said, amid growing frustration with the slow pace of democratic reforms.

Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, chairman of the convention and a leading member of the ruling junta, said in his closing speech that the constitutional convention would resume at year’s end, delegates said.

NORWAY

Panel urges end to church-state link

OSLO — Norway should stop the monarch being head of the Lutheran Church and cut the link between the state and Christianity dating back centuries to the Viking era, a government-sponsored commission said yesterday.

The report recommended that Norway alter its 1814 constitution, which also states that the nation’s values are based on those of the Lutheran Church .

From wire dispatches and staff reports