World briefs

PARIS - One of three sections of the Channel Tunnel shut down after a fire is to reopen on Monday, bringing rail traffic up to nearly half its normal level, the Eurotunnel operator said.

The10.5-mile section will allow 170 trains to travel daily through the tunnel linking Britain and continental Europe, compared to the normal daily average of between 300 and 400 trains, said a Eurotunnel spokeswoman on Sunday.

Traffic resumed partially after a fire broke out on September 11 on a shuttle of 27 trucks traveling to France, causing heavy damage.

Another section of 17 kilometres is expected to reopen in the coming days, but a full return to normal would take "several weeks," she added.Investigators are still trying to establish what caused the blaze.

PARIS - Suspected Basque separatists threw petrol bombs at a police station in Ondorroa in northeast Spain to lure officers outside before detonating a car bomb, which injured 10 people, police said Sunday.

"They parked the vehicle next to a wall close to the police station, before getting out and throwing petrol bombs to try to entice officers outside," a police spokesman said.

The attack came only hours after a car bomb exploded in the regional capital of Vitoria. Nobody was injured. Authorities suspect the militant Basque separatist organisation ETA of having been behind both blasts, each involving around 100 kilos (220 pounds) of explosives.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero condemned the attacks, vowing that "democracy would not step back a millimetre".

TOKYO - Japan's ruling party was poised on Monday to choose Taro Aso, an advocate of more government spending to boost the economy, to be next prime minister and woo voters before an election expected as early as next month.

The outspoken former foreign minister would take over the reins from Yasuo Fukuda, who suddenly quit this month leaving behind a policy vacuum as the economy flirts with recession and risks further damage from turmoil on Wall Street.

The new leader faces the challenge of reviving the world's second-biggest economy despite the constraints of a huge public debt.

Aso, who wants tax cuts for businesses and stock investors, has said Japan's goal of balancing its budget by 2012 could be put off, a stance that has alarmed fiscal reformers in his party.

But newspaper polls have shown a hefty majority of lawmakers and chapters in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are set to vote for Aso.