World Briefs

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Militants detonated two bombs in a busy market and attacked two police checkpoints in northern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 14 people, wounding scores more and testing the resolve of the government as it takes on the Taliban in the Swat Valley.

The attacks in Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan happened within two hours of each other and a day after an assault on security forces in the eastern city of Lahore killed around 30 people. That strike was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, who warned of further attacks unless the government called off the Swat offensive.

TEHRAN, Iran – An explosion in a Shiite mosque in Tehran killed 15 people near Iran's volatile border with Pakistan and Afghanistan on Thursday and a local official said it was a terrorist attack.

The blast went off in Zahedan, the capital of a lawless province in southeast Iran that frequently witnesses clashes between police and gangs involved in drug smuggling.

DETROIT – GENERAL MOTORS CORP. said Thursday a committee of bondholders has agreed to a sweetened deal proposed by the US government to erase the automaker's unsecured debt in exchange for company stock.

The news came in a regulatory filing that spells out the Obama administration's game plan for what it hopes will be a speedy Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization that will leave GM with a much smaller debt load and the US government as the dominant shareholder.

JERUSALEM – Israel rejected on Thursday a US demand to freeze all construction in West Bank Jewish settlements to encourage peace talks, deepening a dispute with the Obama administration that has the hard-line Israeli government increasingly on edge.

The tensions flared on the same day Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Washington for a meeting with President Barack Obama. Abbas said the Palestinian demand for a settlement construction freeze would top his agenda.

CARACAS, Venezuela – There's nothing Hugo Chavez relishes more than addressing the nation for hours on end, and on Thursday the loquacious Venezuelan leader seized the airwaves like never before.

Chavez began what he said will be a four-day "Hello President" radio and television show celebrating the 10th anniversary of the program that has been emulated by other regional leaders.

"There's no program like this one," Chavez boasted as he launched the program.