WORLD briefs

Jerusalem Yesterday Israel rejected a US demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction.

Vancouver Emergency crews struggled on Sunday to contain two wildfires that have forced thousands of residents of a western Canadian community to flee their homes. The flames that spread quickly after they erupted on Saturday have destroyed at least nine buildings in residential areas in the hills along Okanagan Lake west of Kelowna, British Columbia. No injuries or deaths were reported.

Bolivia A leader of coca growers in Central Bolivia says the farmers are putting their controversial crop behind President Evo Morales' campaign for re-election. Asterio Romero tells the government's Patria Nueva radio station that each of his union's 45,000 members will donate a pound of coca to help Morales in the December election

Berlin German Chancellor Angela Merkel hit out at Swedish nuclear operator Vattenfall on Sunday over a series of problems at an ageing reactor near Hamburg. "I am very, very unhappy with what Vattenfall has done and the way that they have acted," Merkel said in an interview on public television. "It is possible to get angry thinking about what has happened and how it has been managed."

Mauritania The former head of the junta that toppled Mauritania's first freely elected leader had a massive lead Sunday in this Islamic country's presidential ballot. But his opponents said the poll was marred by fraud and called it an "electoral coup." With 92 percent of ballots counted, the country's independent electoral commission said former coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz had just over 52 percent of the vote, compared with 16 percent for parliament speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir and around 14 percent for veteran opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah. Aziz must win more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff.

Pakistan At least 26 people died in heavy rains in Pakistan's largest city, officials said Sunday. The rainfall in Karachi since Saturday evening also cut off electricity and inundated all major roads, suspending life in the country's commercial capital, Mayor Mustafa Kamal said.