BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in the midst of a celebration to welcome home an Iraqi detainee released from U.S. custody, killing at least 25 people, Iraqi officials said.

The suicide attack occurred inside one of several tents set up outside a house in the Abu Ghraib area on Baghdad's western outskirts, according to residents and police. It was unclear if the former detainee was among the casualties.

A woman who was wounded but declined to give her name for security reasons said she was preparing food behind the tents when the blast occurred at about 9 p.m., knocking her and her three young children off their feet.

Residents and police said Ayyid Salim al-Zubaie, a local sheik in the mainly Sunni area, had invited dozens of guests to a banquet in honor of his son, who was released earlier in the day from Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.

Residents said the detainee-son had quarreled with al-Qaida members while in detention and may have been the target of the attack.

ABOARD THE U.S.S. MCFAUL -- A U.S. Navy destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid reached Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi on Sunday, bringing baby food, bottled water and a message of support for an embattled ally.

Before the warship arrived, a Russian general suggested U.S. ships moving across the Black Sea would worsen tensions already driven to a post-Cold War high by a short but intense war between Russia and Georgia.

"The population of Georgia will feel more safe from today from the Russian aggression," Georgian Defense Minister David Kezerashvili told The Associated Press on the aft missile deck of the McFaul after greeting U.S. Navy officers in crisp white uniforms on shore.

"They will feel safe not because the destroyer is here but because they will feel they are not alone facing the Russian aggression," he added.

Local children offered the Americans wine and flowers.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- A passenger jet carrying 90 people, including a Kyrgyz high school sports team, crashed shortly after takeoff Sunday near the Kyrgyz capital, killing 68, government officials said.

The Boeing 737 was headed to Iran when it crashed near Bishkek's Manas International Airport, said government spokeswoman Roza Daudova. Twenty-two people, including two crew members, survived the accident.

Earlier, Daudova, had said there were at least 71 dead and 25 survivors, but she later gave lower figures.

An airport official said the crew reported a technical problem about 10 minutes into the flight and that the plane was returning to the airport when it crashed. The official said she was not authorized to give her name.

Officials said the crash followed the sudden decompression of the jet, which came down in a field near a village.

CHAMONIX, France -- Eight climbers were missing and presumed dead Sunday after an avalanche swamped a commonly used hiking trail near Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest peak.

The avalanche, triggered when a chunk of ice as wide as two football fields broke off a mountain face, appeared to be the deadliest this year in the French, Swiss or Italian Alps, and the worst in the French Alps in more than a decade, officials said.

"There's no chance of finding anyone alive," French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said while visiting the region. Five Austrians and three Swiss were missing. Seven other people were hospitalized with injuries.

The avalanche began about 3 a.m. after a massive block of ice known as a serac cracked off a side of the Mont Blanc du Tacul, one of the peaks in the Mont Blanc range, at an altitude of some 11,800 feet, the Haute-Savoie regional government office said in a statement.

Authorities deployed a vast search mission, involving four helicopters, dozens of rescue workers, doctors, Alpine guides and sniffer dogs, French officials and the government statement said.

"It's an area known for avalanches -- it [the ice] regularly breaks off here," Marika Zimmermann, an Alpine climber, said on France-2 television. "They were in the trail, but problem was that the avalanche swept away the trail."

ROME -- An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.

The "Miss Sister 2008" contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

"Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life," Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. "This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible."

Rungi, a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area, said that visitors to his site will have a month to "vote for the nun they consider a model."

Nuns will fill out a profile including information about their life and vocation as well as a photograph. It will be up to them to choose whether to pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered.

"We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits," Rungi said by telephone from his town of Mondragone. "But being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it."

Rungi said the idea was first suggested to him by nuns with whom he regularly prays and works. He hopes there will be dozens of submissions once the Web site is started.

The contest drew criticism from the association of Catholic teachers.

"It's an initiative that belittles the role of nuns who have dedicated themselves to God," the group's president, Alberto Giannino, told Italy's ANSA news agency on Sunday.

LONDON -- An ultra-lightweight plane built from carbon fiber and powered using paper-thin solar panels has broken the world record for longest-lasting unmanned flight, its manufacturer claimed Sunday.

QinetiQ Group PLC said its propeller-driven "Zephyr" aircraft flew for 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's "Global Hawk" in 2001.

The flight also went longer than a previous excursion by the Zephyr, which Qinetiq claims clocked up 54 hours of continuous flight last year.

However both the Zephyr's reported flight times are likely to remain unofficial because they did not meet criteria laid down by the world's air sports federation, the body responsible for measuring and verifying air and space records, QinetiQ spokesman Douglas Millard said.

"We were concentrating more on the flight than the record," he said.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S.-led coalition troops clashed with a group of Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing six militants, while four militants were killed in a battle in the south, officials said.

President Hamid Karzai, meanwhile, fired two Afghan army officers following a joint Afghan-coalition operation in the country's west that he said killed at least 89 civilians.

In the north, coalition troops returned fire after being attacked by militants while on patrol in the volatile Tagab valley of Kapisa province, said coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry.

Rahimullah Safi, the province's deputy governor, said six militants were killed in the clash, while Perry said "multiple militants" were killed.

Tagab is close to where militants killed 10 French troops Tuesday in the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

In southern Helmand province Sunday, four militants were killed by NATO aircraft and Afghan troops, the military alliance said in a statement.