Gwinnett Daily Post

Bush tells Musharraf to hold elections, drop military title

WASHINGTON - President Bush told Pakistan's president on Wednesday that he must hold parliamentary elections and step down as army leader.

'You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time,' Bush said, describing a telephone call with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. 'I had a very frank discussion with him.'

Bush revealed the call to Musharraf during an appearance with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, at George Washington's home in Mount Vernon, Va.

Iraqi officials: Less violence prompts 46,000 to return home

BAGHDAD - Declining violence has prompted Iraqi refugees to pack up and return home, with the government on Wednesday claiming 46,030 people crossed back over the borders in October alone.

But the remnants of the brutality that has shaken Iraq keep turning up. The Iraqi Army said 17 bodies were discovered in an area troops have only recently been able to enter after driving al-Qaida fighters out of regions north and west of the capital.

Ahmadinejad: Iran has reached nuclear milestone

BIRJAND, Iran - Iran has reached a milestone in its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, suggesting that the country now has 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges fully operating.

'We have now reached 3,000 machines,' Ahmadinejad told thousands of Iranians gathered in Birjand, in eastern Iran, in a show of defiance of international demands to halt the program that the U.S. and its allies say masks the country's nuclear arms efforts.

Afghanistan in mourning due to suicide bombing

NEW BAGHLAN, Afghanistan - The death toll from a suicide blast targeting a group of lawmakers and children rose to 60 on Wednesday, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Hundreds of mourners gathered at a mosque near the site of the bombing in the town of New Baghlan, 95 miles north of Kabul, before moving to a simple hilltop graveyard to bury the dead.

The attack happened Tuesday as the lawmakers were being greeted by children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north.