CHAITEN, Chile -- The Chaiten volcano spewed light ash on a nearly deserted village Saturday, two days after its first eruption in thousands of years.

Those who decided to stay after Thursday's eruption could be seen wearing face masks outdoors in Chaiten, 750 miles south of the capital, Santiago. Street lights were illuminated under darkened skies.

Just six miles away, the volcano belched fat smoke plumes that at times rose as high as 12 miles into the air, the government's Emergency Bureau said.

Winds carried the ash to other towns in the region and across the Andes mountains to Argentina, where two airlines suspended flights due to poor visibility.

Authorities evacuated most of Chaiten's residents to schools and churches in the nearby cities of Puerto Montt and Castro.

"It is very difficult to predict when the people will be able to return," Perez said. "This situation can last for days, or weeks -- or longer."

BEIJING -- The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile expressed optimism about upcoming talks with Chinese officials, but cautioned Saturday not to expect too much from the first meeting between the two sides since violent anti-government protests erupted in Tibet.

Talks were scheduled to begin Sunday and last for a day or two in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, which neighbors Hong Kong, said Samdhong Rinpoche, the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharmsala, India.

"We are positive that something good will come out of it," Rinpoche told The Associated Press.

Two of the Dalai Lama's representatives planned to push for peace in Tibetan areas of China and address Beijing's accusations that the spiritual leader has been masterminding the recent unrest, he told a public rally in Dharmsala.

But Rinpoche added afterward: "Our hopes are high, but this is just a small step in a long process."

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A Honduran police official says at least 18 inmates have died in a prison attack.

Security Ministry spokesman Wilmer Torres says 31 prisoners were attacked by their cellmates with knives and guns just hours after they were transferred Friday night to a prison in Tegucigalpa from San Pedro Sula, 110 miles north of the capital.

The prisoners fought back, engaging in a bloody battle. Thirteen survived.

Torres said the prison was under control later Saturday and that police are investigating a motive for the attack.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe's opposition on Saturday held out the possibility its leader would face President Robert Mugabe in a presidential runoff, but called on the nation's neighbors to verify the vote count from the first round.

Thokozani Khupe, vice president of the Movement for Democratic Change, said the group still believed a runoff was unnecessary, maintaining opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round outright on March 29.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission released results a day earlier giving Tsvangirai the lead, but not the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff with Mugabe, the second-place finisher. The opposition rejected those results as fraudulent.

At a news conference Saturday, Khupe called on the Southern African Development Community to help verify the results.

"We still need to be convinced before we participate in a runoff," she said.

JENIN, West Bank -- Hundreds of flag-waving Palestinian troops took up positions in the former militant stronghold of Jenin on Saturday, part of President Mahmoud Abbas's attempt to assert control over once lawless West Bank towns and encourage an Israeli withdrawal.

The Israeli military and Abbas sharply disagree over whether the Palestinian forces are ready to replace Israeli troops in the West Bank, the only area Abbas controls following the June 2007 violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants.

The West Bank city of Nablus, which several months ago became the test case for Abbas's forces, is still raided regularly by Israeli troops searching for fugitives. Palestinian officials say such raids undermine their security forces, but Israel says Palestinian troops too often co-opt, rather than confront militants.

Jenin is the second town in which newly trained Palestinian troops were deployed in large numbers, and the city of Hebron is next.

"I hope this will be a step in the direction of restoring full [Palestinian] security jurisdiction in these areas," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "So far this has not been done, and if the Israelis continue coming ... to Nablus and Jenin, this would undermine our effort."

About 480 officers from the National Security and the Presidential Guard, dressed in black and khaki uniforms, marched into Jenin. Thousands flocked to the town's center to cheer on the forces, which will beef up the area's existing force of 1,500 officers.

AMSTETTEN, Austria -- Nearly a week after news of a 73-year-old Austrian's alleged incest and rape rattled this Alpine nation, friends of the family still grapple with how Josef Fritzl's crime could have happened in their midst -- and gone unnoticed.

Fritzl's confession that he kept his daughter locked in a windowless lair for 24 years, fathering seven of her children, while posing as the head of a happy family has bewildered, angered and estranged former friends.

One of them, a 45-year-old woman from Munich, who would give her name only as Andrea S., said she felt duped and betrayed by Fritzl.

"If I would see him now, I would ask ... 'How can you do such a thing to your children?"' she told AP Television News in an interview Saturday.

That question was also on the minds of classmates of three of the children whom Fritzl fathered with Elisabeth -- then allegedly smuggled out of the basement and dropped on the doorstep with notes police say he forced his daughter to write saying she couldn't raise them.