News

Troops fought militants on three fronts and fighter jets bombed insurgent positions near the Afghan border Monday as Pakistan pressed ahead with an assault on the country’s main Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold.

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Parties join for talks on Iran nukes Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei, front, arrives for a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S., Russia and France on Monday at Vienna’s International Center. The talks are focusing on whether Iran, accused of having a nuclear weapons program, is ready to farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country.

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The army and the Pakistani Taliban have each claimed early victories in South Waziristan, a lawless, semiautonomous region that Islamist extremists use as a base to plot attacks on the Pakistani state, Western troops in Afghanistan and targets in the West.

As the offensive entered its third day, Pakistani intelligence officials revealed that the army had reached prior agreements with two militant commanders — whose supporters are believed to be fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan — to stay neutral during the assault.

WASHINGTON

New planets discovered

European astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system, adding evidence to the theory that the universe has many places where life could develop.

Scientists using the European Southern Observatory telescope didn’t find any planets quite the size of Earth or any that seemed habitable or even unusual. But their announcement increased the number of planets discovered outside the solar system to more than 400.

Six of the newly found planets are several times bigger than Earth, increasing the population of so-called super-Earths by more than 30 percent. Most planets discovered so far are far bigger, Jupiter-sized or even larger.

Two of the newly discovered planets were as small as five times the size of Earth and one was up to five times larger than Jupiter.

LOS ANGELES

Pot enforcement barred

A judge has temporarily barred Los Angeles from enforcing a moratorium on medical marijuana clinics.

Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant on Monday granted a preliminary injunction sought by Green Oasis, a medical marijuana collective that sued last month.

The judge ruled that the City Council failed to follow state law when it extended an initial ban on new dispensaries.

The injunction applies only to Green Oasis, but it could inspire other dispensaries to sue.

Hundreds of marijuana facilities have opened in the city in recent years. The city ban permitted only 186 to operate.

NAIROBI, Kenya

Pirates take Chinese ship

Somali pirates seized a Chinese cargo ship Monday with 25 people onboard, a naval spokesman for the European Union’s anti-piracy force said, in the first successful attack on a Chinese vessel since the country deployed three naval warships to the region.

Cmdr. John Harbour said that coalition forces had observed at least two pirates onboard the deck of the De Xin Hai and the cargo ship also was towing two light skiffs used by the pirates behind it. All 25 crew onboard are Chinese, he said.

The attack occurred early Monday in the Indian Ocean about 700 miles east of the lawless Somali coastline. Harbour said he believed it was the farthest afield the pirates had ever struck.

“We’re pushing them further and further afield to get targets,” he said, referring to a coalition of navies dedicated to fighting piracy in the region.