World Briefs: Britain drops plan to reform Lords

UNITED KINGDOM

LONDON — Britain’s deputy prime minister says the government will abandon plans to overhaul the 700-year-old House of Lords amid resistance from both his coalition colleagues and the opposition Labor Party.

Nick Clegg said Monday that attempts to reform the unelected House of Lords were being scrapped until at least 2015.

Members of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party, the senior member of the coalition government with Mr. Clegg’s smaller Liberal Democrats, had opposed the plans.

They complained that constitutional changes shouldn’t be a priority when Britain is suffering a recession.

Russia

Four killed in Chechnya bombing

MOSCOW — A suicide bombing in Chechnya on Monday killed four people and injured three in the latest violence in the Russian region where the Kremlin fought two wars with separatists over the past 20 years.

Two officers and a soldier died in the explosion when their armored vehicle traveling between the garrison town of Khankala and the capital Grozny made a stop, said Vasily Panchenkov, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry troops.

In a conflicting report, Moscow-based investigators said the fourth body “probably belonged to a suicide bomber.”

Three more soldiers received serious injuries and were admitted to a hospital, Mr. Panchenkov said.

Cuba

Political arrests hit record high, activists say

HAVANA — Cuban authorities arrested more than 400 dissidents for “political reasons” in July, reflecting stepped up pressure on critics of the communist government, an opposition group said Monday.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said many of the 406 dissidents were held “for several hours to several days.”

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