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SAO PAULO — Brazil's president asked God to halt the devastating rains that have killed at least 116 people in a southern state and offered new plans on Monday to help tens of thousands of people rebuild ruined homes and businesses.

"We're only asking God to stop the rains soon so that we can start to rebuild the state of Santa Catarina," said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his weekly radio show.

Thirty-one people are still missing, and some officials have estimated the death count could rise to 150.

About 80,000 people were forced from their homes by storms that dumped more water on the region during the weekend of Nov. 22-23 than it normally gets in months.

Forecasters said intermittent rains should end on Thursday.

GUATEMALA CITY — Mexican and Guatemalan drug traffickers arguing about a horse race in a rural border town began a series of gunbattles in which 17 people died, police said Monday.

National police spokesman Donald Gonzalez said the traffickers were drinking in the town of Santa Ana Huista on Sunday afternoon when an argument broke out over bets on a horse race, leading to a pursuit in which the gunmen shot at each other with automatic weapons from trucks racing down roads near a remote part of the Mexican border.

MOSCOW — Russia's military is planning to upgrade its missiles to allow them to evade American weapons in space and penetrate any prospective missile shield, a Russian general said Monday.

In comments to the Interfax news agency, Russia's Strategic Missile Forces chief, Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, was quoted as saying that Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles will be modernized to protect them from space-based components of the U.S. missile defense system.

The upgrade will make the missiles' warheads capable of flying "outside the range" of the space-based system, Solovtsov was quoted as saying.

ROME — The "Year of the Gorilla" began Monday — a U.N. effort to raise money for primates threatened with extinction from disease, hunting and deforestation.

Officials for the U.N.-backed Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals said they hoped to raise $630,000 for projects aimed at fighting the animals' biggest threats.

The "Year of the Gorilla" was launched at a ceremony in Rome where Prince Albert II of Monaco and representatives from more than 100 governments gathered this week to discuss increasing measures for nearly 30 species endangered by pollution, climate change and over-hunting.

HARARE — Gunfire broke out in downtown Harare when rampaging, unpaid soldiers attacked money-changers and clashed with police.

Monday's violence is the second time in a week that soldiers have attacked money-changers and stolen their cash in frustration after they have been unable to get their wages at banks.

People can only draw small amounts of money from banks every day because of a cash shortage. Often this is not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

LONDON — Artist Mark Leckey has won Britain's prestigious Turner Prize for a piece of work that draws in Homer Simpson and the Titanic movie.

Leckey won the $37,281 prize Monday for the installation Industrial Light & Magic, which includes a film of the artist lecturing on his love of animation. Felix the Cat, Homer Simpson and the Titanic movie appear in the film.

The jury said, "With wit and originality, Leckey has found a variety of forms to communicate his fascination with visual culture."

LONDON — A British mother lost a libel suit Monday against the daughter who claimed in a book that her childhood had been marred by emotional and physical abuse.

Constance Briscoe had defended her book, "Ugly," as a true account of her suffering at the hands of her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell.

The book has sold more than half a million copies since its publication two years ago, and Briscoe has written a sequel, "Beyond Ugly."

Briscoe testified that her mother beat her repeatedly with a stick for bed-wetting and called her names. The abuse drove her to drink bleach in a suicide attempt, and she had plastic surgery in response to her mother's taunts that she was ugly, Briscoe said.