Democrats retain veto power in Hong Kong

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp has won more than a third of seats in legislative elections, retaining its veto power over major legislation.

Results announced Monday show the opposition has claimed at least 22 of 60 seats in the legislature. The key threshold for pro-democracy parties was 21 seats -- a number that would allow them to block major legislation that requires a two-thirds majority for passage.

The pro-democracy camp had been expected to suffer a setback in the election after China gave a timetable for democratic reform in Hong Kong last year.

Half of Hong Kong's legislative seats are directly elected by voters, with the rest chosen by special interest groups.

Egypt rock slide kills at least 32 people

CAIRO, Egypt -- Hopes diminished Sunday for finding survivors among hundreds of people believed trapped beneath massive boulders that destroyed an impoverished neighborhood on Cairo's outskirts, killing at least 32 people, including whole extended families.

Anger and resentment mounted as authorities failed for a second day to get heavy machinery into the devastated shantytown to try to clear the large slabs that split away from the Muqattam cliffs early Saturday. Survivors among the 100,000 residents of the Dewika slum were also left to spend the night without shelter, despite government promises to provide it.

"The area turned into a mass grave," one bearded man shouted, while a tearful young woman in a black robe clutched a picture of a newlywed couple whose bodies remained trapped below.

Hundreds of anti-riot police in helmets and shields cordoned off the area to prevent journalists and residents from approaching the site. Only young residents who have been involved in the rescue efforts were allowed to get close.

"In America, rescue workers would hurry to save a cat. Here, hundreds of human beings are buried under the rocks and nobody seems to care," said a taxi driver who was helping with the rescue but refused to give his name.

Many residents who spoke to a reporter refused to give their names, saying they felt intimidated and threatened by the security forces in the area.

Rabie Ragab, whose house overlooks the boulders, accused the government of trying to deceive the public. "The minister of housing told the media that no one would sleep in the street. You can see that we all slept in the streets."

Alleys leading up to the demolished houses were packed with women weeping and wailing while calling out names of their loved ones. One young man with a dusty face burst into tears and lay on the ground after losing his whole family.

State television reported that another body was pulled from the rubble Sunday, bringing the death toll to 32. A security official said 46 people were treated at hospitals, but many other people remained buried. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Georgian prez vows to reclaim provinces

TBILISI, Georgia -- On the eve of a European Union shuttle mission to convince Russia to pull its troops back to prewar positions, Georgia's president vowed Sunday to regain control of two breakaway provinces with the help of "the rest of the world."

A month after the Aug. 7 outbreak of war in the region and weeks after a cease-fire was approved, Russian troops remain entrenched deep inside Georgian territory.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due in Moscow on Monday at the head of an EU delegation charged with reducing tensions and ensuring Russian compliance with the cease-fire terms, which include withdrawing its troops to positions held before the fighting broke out. Russia says those troops are peacekeepers and that they are allowed under the accord. Despite the presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil, President Mikhail Saakashvili said the West would help his country regain control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the separatist regions of Georgia recognized as independent nations by Moscow last month.

"Our territorial integrity will be restored, I am more convinced of this than ever," Saakashvili said in a televised appearance. "This will not be an easy process, but now this is a process between an irate Russia and the rest of the world."

"Our goal is the return of our territory and the peaceful unification of Georgia," he said.

Canadian P.M. calls early election

TORONTO -- Canada's prime minister on Sunday triggered an early election, dissolving Parliament in a bid to bolster his party's grip on power in a vote next month that will be the country's third national ballot in four years.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he expects the Oct. 14 vote to produce another minority government but recent polls show the Conservatives could win the majority they need to rule without help from opposition parties.

Analysts said Harper's party has a better shot of winning now than if they had waited until being forced into a vote later when the Canadian economy might be worse off or after Canadians could be influenced by the U.S. presidential election results. The Conservatives unseated the Liberal Party in 2006 after nearly 13 years in power but as a minority government have been forced to rely on opposition lawmakers to pass legislation and adopt budgets.

Electoral legislation that Harper helped enact after he came to power in 2006 fixed the date for the next election in October 2009. But a loophole allows the prime minister to ask the governor general to dissolve Parliament, which Harper did Sunday after signaling in recent weeks that he was leaning toward an early election.

Harper said he is running on economic issues and has stressed his opposition to an energy tax proposed by the Liberals. "Between now and Oct. 14, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interests at a time of global economic trouble," Harper said on Sunday.

50,000 villagers in flooded India refuse to leave

PATNA, India -- At least 50,000 people in India have refused to abandon their homes in flood-ravaged northern Indian despite pleas by authorities to evacuate, an official said Sunday. Newspaper advertisements also urged thousands of flood survivors Sunday to go to one of 77 state-run camps set up in Saharsa district in impoverished Bihar state, where clean drinking water, food and medical care was available.

At least 50,000 people have refused to leave the district, one of the worst-affected areas in Bihar, said Prataya Amrit, a state disaster management official. Towns and villages in the flooded region are home to about 1.2 million people.

Rescue workers have evacuated about 900,000 villagers, but with river levels falling by up to two feet over the last few days, thousands began to return to their homes, Amrit said.

The Kosi River, which flows down from the Himalayas in neighboring Nepal into India where it joins the Ganges River, burst its banks Aug. 18 and dramatically shifted course, moving dozens of miles to the east.

It turned hundreds of square miles of land in Bihar into a giant lake.

On Saturday, government engineers began digging a new channel to correct the course of the river and plug the mile-long breach in the embankment.

Rice presses African allies on terror cooperation

RABAT, Morocco -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday pressed U.S. allies in North Africa for greater cooperation in the face of terrorism and continued efforts at political change as she ended a visit to the region.

The top U.S. diplomat said she discussed "the process of reform" in meetings with leaders in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Those talks, she said at a news conference with her Moroccan counterpart, helped "look at ways in which we might help the countries of this important region to have a more unified approach to the challenges that face them.'

Morocco's foreign minister, Taieb Fassi Fihri, said the meetings also addressed "relations with our brother country Algeria," and what can be done "against common threats and international terrorism."

A main point of contention between Morocco and Algeria is Western Sahara, a mineral-rich region that Morocco annexed in 1975. Rice said the U.S. backed a new round of U.N. talks to solve the protracted problem through a plan for autonomy.

But the pro-independence Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, wants a referendum to rule on the Western Sahara's right to self-determination.

"We believe it is extremely important" for Algeria and Morocco to resolve the question, Rice said, because it is hampering their cooperation on other issues such as security and counterterrorism.