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9 killed, 40 wounded in Gaza fighting

JERUSALEM — Israeli troops staged one of the largest raids into the Gaza Strip in recent months on Wednesday, killing eight Palestinians and wounding more than 40 in gunbattles that began before dawn and lasted much of the day. One Israeli soldier was also killed.

The Israeli soldiers, in tanks, on foot and backed by helicopters, exchanged fire with Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza farming town of Beit Hanun, the launching ground for many of the Palestinian rockets fired into southern Israel.

As the two sides battled, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security Cabinet met in Jerusalem and debated whether to step up the 4-month-old military operations in Gaza. The security Cabinet chose not to escalate military actions for now.

Holocaust cartoon wins $12,000 prize

TEHRAN — Iran awarded a Moroccan artist Wednesday the top prize in an exhibition of cartoons on the Holocaust.

Meant to be a response to the Danish cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that sparked rage among Muslims around the world, the exhibit appears inspired by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be destroyed.

Abdollah Derkaoui received $12,000 for his work depicting an Israeli crane piling large cement blocks on Israel's security wall and gradually obscuring Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A picture of the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp appears on the wall.

Lords vote to revoke terror extraditions

LONDON — The House of Lords delivered a setback to Prime Minister Tony Blair's government Wednesday over an extradition treaty, demanding that "fast-track" arrangements for sending terror suspects to the United States be eliminated.

In a vote of 189-152, Parliament's upper house approved a measure demanding an end to the streamlined extraditions to the United States. By a vote of 171-138, the Lords backed another measure that would restrict the ability to extradite to America if the alleged offense was partly committed in Britain.

The issue will now return to the House of Commons, where lawmakers last week defeated an effort to overturn the extradition treaty. Both houses must agree on legislation before it can become law, unless the government decides to invoke rarely used powers to force a bill through over the Lords' objections.

New British extradition rules lessen the burden of proof in some cases.

Rebels bombard police station

BOGOTA — Hundreds of leftist rebels bombarded a remote police station with makeshift mortars in a pre-dawn attack Wednesday and ambushed a column of police reinforcements, killing at least 16 officers, authorities said.

The six-hour assault in the village of Tierradentro, 230 miles northwest of Bogota, was the bloodiest since President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in May in a landslide that endorsed his get-tough policy with the rebels.

Authorities blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC.

New trade union federation launches

VIENNA — Delegates from trade unions worldwide launched a new global labor federation Wednesday aimed at ensuring workers' rights are not forgotten in the rush toward economic globalization.

Organizers said the International Trade Union Confederation — formerly the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions — would modernize to tackle new challenges to the union workers' rights and to strengthen its efforts to end forced and child labor.

Officials said the new umbrella group, touted as the world's largest dedicated to workers' rights, would represent more than 150 million members from 241 affiliated organizations in 156 countries.