PAKISTAN. Pakistani operated to remove light bulb from anus. Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass light bulb in his anus. Doctors brought Mohammad?s misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object. Mohammad, who is serving a four-year sentence for making liquor, prohibited for Muslims, said he was shocked when he was first told the cause of his discomfort. He swears he didn?t know the bulb was there.

WASHINGTON. Bush meets Koizumi. US President George W. Bush hoped to strengthen already close ties with Japan in meetings with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday where Bush thanked his Pacific ally for his support in Iraq and discuss shared concerns about North Korea.

KUWAIT. Women vote and run in Kuwaiti poll for first time. Kuwaitis voted in parliamentary elections yesterday with women running for office and casting ballots for the first time in a national poll in the oil-producing Gulf Arab country. The poll was called after Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved parliament last month following a standoff between the government and opposition over electoral reforms.

BAGHDAD String of attacks kill 12 in Iraq. A trash collector and the head of security for Baghdad University were killed in separate drive-by shootings yesterday as a string of attacks nationwide left a dozen people dead, most in the capital, police said. The violence came a day after insurgent and government officials said 11 militant groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks ? including those on American troops ? if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years.

BERLIN. England fan handed suspended prison sentence. An England supporter has been given a five months suspended prison sentence for throwing a plastic chair and a beer bottle at the police at the England-Ecuador World Cup match in Stuttgart. The 27-year-old, who has not been named, works as a security official at the British defence ministry. German police arrested some 300 England fans in Stuttgart on Sunday after they became embroiled in scuffles with Germans, who were watching their team play Sweden, ahead of the Ecuador clash.

MEXICO CITY. Lopez leads opinion polls. Mexican leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, holding a wafer-thin lead in opinion polls, told over 100,000 supporters gathered in the rain yesterday he would make history if he wins Sunday?s presidential election.

FRANCE. Jospin will shoot for presidential elections. France?s ageing politicians, like the nation?s soccer players, seem hungry for one last hurrah. In a week that saw France?s wily old footballers reach the World Cup quarter finals, two elder statesmen indicated they too were in no hurry to hang up their boots and might still shoot for the 2007 presidential elections. President Jacques Chirac and his long-standing Socialist opponent Lionel Jospin showed their tactical cunning by appearing on prime time television just before the summer recess to float the idea of a final ballot box showdown.