World Briefs

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranians packed polling stations from boutique-lined streets in north Tehran to conservative bastions in the countryside Friday with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.

Turnout was massive and could break records. Crowds formed quickly at many voting sites in areas considered both strongholds for Ahmadinejad and his main rival, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has become the surprise hero of a youth-driven movement.

UNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council on Friday punished North Korea for its second nuclear test, imposing tough new sanctions, expanding an arms embargo and authorizing ship searches on the high seas, with the goal of derailing the isolated nation's nuclear and missile programs.

The resolution seeks to deprive North Korea of financing and material for its weapons program and bans the country's lucrative arms exports, especially missiles.

BRUSSELS, Belgium – The thousands of new US troops deploying in Afghanistan can lessen the reliance on airstrikes that sometimes kill civilians and undermine support for the fight against the Taliban, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

At a meeting of NATO defense ministers, Gates said the accidental killing of Afghan civilians was "one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities" and that reducing those is a primary assignment for the American general he picked to turn around the stalemated war.

BAGHDAD – The head of Iraq's main Sunni parliamentary bloc was killed in a bold daylight attack after delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in western Baghdad, raising fears that insurgents are trying to rekindle sectarian violence. A gunman believed to be as young as 15 shot Harith al-Obeidi as he left the mosque and walked toward his nearby home, police said.

PERUGIA, Italy – An American student accused of murdering her British roommate took the stand for the first time Friday, telling an Italian court in a quavering voice that she saw the victim hours before the killing, then went to her boyfriend's house for the night.

Prosecutors say 21-year-old Meredith Kercher was killed after returning home from an outing with friends on the evening of Nov. 1, 2007. They say she opened the door for her roommate, 21-year-old Amanda Knox of Seattle, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.