CUBA

CUBA

Party Congress Planned

Cuba will convene a Communist Party congress next year to establish guidelines, including for "when the historic generations are no longer around," President Raúl Castro announced Monday.

The congress, Cuba's sixth and the first since 1997, follows a series of minor social changes Castro has decreed to make life easier and less restrictive for ordinary Cubans.

"We have worked hard in these past few months," the president said during a Central Committee gathering in Havana, aired on state television.

The congress is likely to replace some officials of the 25-member party Politburo, and it could replace Fidel Castro as head of the party. Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, and he stepped down as Cuba's president in February.

Raúl Castro also announced that he had commuted death sentences for several inmates but added that capital punishment would remain on the books.

ZIMBABWE

Opposition Rivals Unite

Zimbabwe's opposition movement united Monday in spite of long-standing divisions, declaring that it has won control of parliament for the first time in history and that President Robert Mugabe must concede defeat.

Opposition leaders also appealed to the U.N. Security Council to send a special envoy to Zimbabwe and to warn Mugabe that the mounting violence against opposition supporters was tantamount to "crimes against humanity."

Putting months of bickering behind them, Movement for Democratic Change leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara stood together in neighboring South Africa and urged 84-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled since 1980, to step aside.

AFGHANISTAN

Security Tightened

Afghan soldiers took up positions Monday in districts of the capital where government officials and foreigners live, while security officers hunted for suspects in the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai.