KAZAKHSTAN

A Malaysian surgeon aboard a Russian spacecraft became the first Muslim to reach space during the holy month of Ramadan, vowing to adhere to Islamic rituals even while hurtling around Earth at 17,000 mph.

Sheik Muszaphar Shukor, along with one astronaut each from Russia and the U.S., lifted off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, en route to the International Space Station, where he will spend about 10 days. The American, Peggy Whitson, will be the first woman to command the station.

If Shukor follows guidelines established for the mission by Muslim scholars, he can forgo fasting and make up for it when he returns to Earth. And facing Mecca is not to be taken literally, scholars agreed.

POLAND

Ex-nuns evicted from convent

Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after defying a Vatican order to replace their charismatic leader.

The former nuns walked out after a locksmith opened the gate to the walled compound and police in riot gear rushed in and arrested the mother superior, who has said she has religious visions. The women, whom the Vatican expelled from their order, took over the convent in Kazmierz Dolny in eastern Poland in rebellion against a 2005 order to replace Jadwiga Ligocka as mother superior.

AFGHANISTAN

5 hostages traded for prisoners

A German engineer and four Afghans taken hostage in central Afghanistan in July have been freed in exchange for five imprisoned criminals, an Afghan official said.

Local elders handed over Rudolf Blechschmidt and the four Afghans to officials from Afghanistan's intelligence service in Wardak province, said Mohammad Nahim, a district chief.

PAKISTAN

Elections planned for early January

Pakistan will hold parliamentary elections in early January, the prime minister said, a vote that will test President Pervez Musharraf's goal of rallying moderates against spreading extremism. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz did not specify a date.

Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who have been in power-sharing talks, have both called for moderates to reverse a resurgence of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants along the Afghan border.

MYANMAR

Activist dies while being questioned

An opposition party member died during interrogation and two activists were arrested as the junta pressed its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, a rights group said.

The Thailand-based Assistance Assn. for Political Prisoners also said security officers had been threatening dissidents' relatives and neighbors.

COLOMBIA

Increase seen in illegal executions

Colombian soldiers are executing an increasing number of peasants in rural areas and passing them off as leftist rebels killed in combat, a human rights study found.

There have been 955 documented cases of illegal executions by the army over the last five years, compared with 577 in the previous five, according to the International Observation Mission on Extrajudicial Executions and Impunity in Colombia.

From Times Wire Reports