CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AP) — Seeking to end anger in the Islamic world caused by his remarks on holy war, Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim ambassadors Monday that the two faiths must overcome any historic enmities and together reject violence — saying the future of humanity is at stake.

KISMAYO, Somalia (AFP) — Muslim gunmen opened fire Monday on crowds protesting the overnight Islamist takeover of Somalia’s key port of Kismayo, with conflicting reports of casualties.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) — The African Union will add 4,000 troops to its extended Darfur peacekeeping mission, bringing the number of police and soldiers in western Sudan to 11,000, a spokesman for the AU said on Monday.

SANAA (AFP) — Four French nationals kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen two weeks ago have been freed and are well, state-owned news agency Saba said Monday.

RABAT (Reuters) — Morocco’s once secretive socialists have launched a mass membership drive to boost their chances at polls next year in which their message of secular modernity faces a challenge from resurgent Islamists.

RABAT (Reuters) — Morocco’s once secretive socialists have launched a mass membership drive to boost their chances at polls next year in which their message of secular modernity faces a challenge from resurgent Islamists.

TRIPOLI (AP) — A thaw in US-Libyan relations was well under way, Libyan newspapers reported Sunday, after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met her Libyan counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a groundbreaking, secret meeting 10 days ago with a senior Saudi Arabian official, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq’s leaders stepped back from the brink of a political crisis on Sunday in the hope of preventing a dispute over local control of oilfields erupting into all-out sectarian civil war.

NEW YORK — US spy agencies dropped a political bombshell six weeks before national elections, with the leak Sunday of a classified report concluding that the war in Iraq has spawned a new wave of radicalism and increased the global threat of terrorism.