World Briefs

PARIS - European leaders raced against the clock on Sunday to clinch a rescue strategy for banks battered by the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, under intense pressure to throw them a lifeline before world markets reopen.

At a summit in Paris, the focus fixed firmly on how much state money governments could mobilize to buy into banks if needed, and if they would also underwrite lending between banks, paralyzed for now by fear and distrust.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters the meeting would come up with an "ambitious and coordinated plan" to tackle the crisis, which spread from the United States more than a year ago but hit fever pitch in recent weeks.

Officials suggested action rather than rhetoric could emerge from a gathering.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - About 100 militants were killed in Afghanistan's Helmand province, half in air strikes that thwarted a major attack on a key town overnight, Afghan and British forces said Sunday.

The attempt to enter Lashkar Gah from three directions was "virtually unprecedented" in the area in the scale of the attacking force and their degree of coordination, British military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Woody Page said.

It came as the head of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, again called for more troops and equipment to tackle a fierce insurgency led by the Taliban, who were driven from government in 2001.

Between 50 and 60 militants, part of a group of 150 that had been seen massing outside of the town for several days, were killed in air strikes.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Sunday it will resume dismantling its main nuclear facilities, hours after the U.S. removed the communist country from a list of states Washington says sponsor terrorism.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said it will again allow inspections by the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to verify the disablement process, pledged under a 2007 disarmament-for-aid deal with the U.S. and four other regional powers.

"We welcome the U.S. which has honored its commitment to delist (North Korea) as 'a state sponsor of terrorism,'" the ministry said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea halted its nuclear disablement in mid-August in anger over what it called U.S. delays in removing it from the terror list. The country has since taken steps toward reassembling its plutonium-producing facility.