Deaths take UK Afghan toll to 201

Two more British soldiers have been killed by explosions in Afghanistan, taking the number of personnel killed since operations began in 2001 to 201.

One, from the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, died in hospital from wounds.

The second, from 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, died after an explosion on Saturday while on foot patrol in Sangin, Helmand province.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted it had been "a very difficult summer", but said progress was being made.

Paying tribute to those who had been killed, Mr Brown said their efforts were helping to make the world safer and that progress had been made in allowing forthcoming Afghan elections to take place.

"We have created space in which we can have Afghan government, Afghan police and Afghan forces and that will make it very difficult for the Taliban and Al Qaeda to reassert themselves," he said.

"Three quarters of the terrorist plots that hit Britain derive from the mountain areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said.

"And it is to make Britain safe and the rest of the world safe that we must make sure we honour our commitment to maintain and keep a stable Afghanistan."

Mr Brown insisted "every effort" was being made to ensure troops had the best security and equipment.

"We have increased dramatically the resources we are spending in Afghanistan to deal with this new kind of threat which is the roadside bomb, the electronic devices, the guerrilla warfare."

The Royal Welsh soldier had been on vehicle patrol near Musa Qala in Helmand province on Thursday morning when he was hit by the explosion.

Gordon Brown: "We must never forget why we are in Afghanistan''

He died at a military hospital in Selly Oak, Birmingham, on Saturday. Neither he nor the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers soldier has been named, but their next of kin have been informed.

Clinton offers aid to victims of Africa's longest conflict

(CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought an offer of help Tuesday for victims -- especially victims of sexual violence -- in Africa's longest war, a regional conflict that's dragged on for more than a decade.

"We want to banish the problems of sexual violence into the dark past where it belongs," she said during her visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In a meeting with leaders of nongovernmental organizations, Clinton said the United States will provide "more than $17 million in new funds to prevent and respond to gender and sexual violence."

On Monday, Clinton had delivered a blunt message to Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito when he hosted a dinner in her honor.

"There must be an end to widespread financial corruption and abuses of human rights and women's rights," she said. "There must be an improvement in governance and the respect for the rule of law."

She also called for "changes in the business climate, changes in the rules and regulations that involve contracts and the protection of property" to promote foreign investment.

On Tuesday, she offered help to the country's president, Joseph Kabila.

"I offered and the president accepted my sending of legal and financial and other technical experts to the DRC to provide specific suggestions about how to overcome these very serious obstacles to the potential of this country," she said, according to a pool report from Goma, in the east of the country.

The Congo conflict has involved several countries and resulted in an estimated 5 million deaths from fighting and collateral problems such as disease and starvation, according to an International Rescue Committee survey conducted more than a year ago. The United Nations estimates 200,000 women and girls have been raped in Congo since war broke out 12 years ago.

"I will be pressing very hard for not just assistance to help those who are being abused and mistreated, in particular the women who are turned into weapons of war through the rape they experience, but also looking for ways to try to end this conflict," Clinton said.

"I hope that here in the [Congo] there will be a concerted effort to demand justice for women who are violently attacked, and to make sure that their attackers are punished," she said Monday after a tour of a Kinshasa, Congo, hospital.

The United Nations said there were 15,996 cases of sexual violence registered in Congo in 2008. A Human Rights Watch report says two out of three rapes were carried out against children, mostly adolescent girls.

Clinton took a small U.N. plane on the 1,000-mile trip from Kinshasa to Goma, the scene of intense fighting over the past several years.

The smaller aircraft was necessary because the U.S. plane being used on her seven-nation Africa trip is too big for the local landing strip, Clinton told reporters Monday.

She opened her Africa trip in Nairobi, Kenya, then went to South Africa and Angola. After Congo, she will travel to Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

Costa Rican president sick with swine flu

(CNN) -- Costa Rican President Oscar Arias has been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu, the government said in a televised statement on Tuesday.

Arias fell ill on Sunday, complaining of a sore throat and temperature, Presidential Minister Rodrigo Arias said.

A doctor's visit on Tuesday revealed that the president had the H1N1 virus, cases of which had been reported earlier in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose.

The president's overall health was good, but following his doctor's advice, he will rest at his home until Sunday, Rodrigo Arias said.

The president is expected to return to work on Monday, the minister said.

As of Friday, there were 718 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus in Costa Rica, and the virus has been blamed for 27 deaths, according to a report by the country's ministry of health.

Man arrested over $65M jewelry heist

LONDON, England (CNN) -- London police have arrested a man in connection with a brazen daylight robbery of a jewelry store last week, they announced Wednesday.

The 50-year-old man was arrested on Monday, police revealed. Some $65 million in merchandise was stolen in the August 6 robbery.

On Tuesday police released surveillance camera photos of two men sought for questioning over the heist as well as images of some of the rings, bracelets, necklaces and watches taken from Graff Jewellers on central London's New Bond Street. A total of 43 items were taken, with a value of about £40 million, or about $65 million, Scotland Yard said.

The heist occurred Thursday, when two men walked into the jewelry store at about 4:40 p.m. and threatened employees with handguns. As the robbers were leaving the store, they brought a female worker outside with them before leaving in a blue BMW, Scotland Yard said. A shot was fired outside the store, but no one was injured.

The men abandoned the BMW nearby, firing a second shot into the ground, Scotland Yard said. Police believe they switched to a silver Mercedes, then later to a black vehicle, possibly a Ford or Volkswagen.

"This was a well-planned robbery with a number of vehicles used to help the robbers escape," Detective Chief Inspector Pam Mace said in the statement. "These men are extremely dangerous and fired at least two shots in busy London streets as they made their getaway. Watch how robbers rip off London jewelers »

"Someone knows who these men are," she said. "They would undoubtedly have spoken about (the robbery) before or boasted about it afterwards. I would urge anyone who recognizes them, knows the whereabouts of the jewelry or has any other information to contact us."

The images show the two men dressed in suits and ties. One man is white, about 30, police said. The second is a black man believed to be in his 30s with short hair. Both men are thought to have spoken with London accents, Scotland Yard said.

The robbery is the latest in a spate of daytime thefts at jewelry stores and designer shops in London's exclusive shopping areas of Bond Street, which includes New Bond Street.

Groups of men or teenagers typically stage "smash and grab" robberies, in which they break the windows and steal anything they can get their hands on before speeding away in waiting cars or motorbikes.

A CNN camera crew filming in March on Oxford Street, near Bond Street, caught a group of thieves speeding away on motorbikes from a jewelry store they had just robbed.

The thieves choose to strike during the day when a store's security system is typically disarmed, even though the store and sidewalk may be crowded with people.

Pakistanis shot at Somali mosque

At least five Pakistanis have been killed in a dawn attack at a mosque on the border of Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region, witnesses say.

Armed men in masks entered a mosque in Galkayo and ordered six Pakistanis and one Somali outside, they said.

The gunmen then opened fire, killing five men and seriously injuring two.

Those targeted are said to be Muslim preachers. Puntland has been tense recently, but the reason for the latest attack is unclear.

The Pakistanis are thought to be missionaries from an Islamic branch called Tabliq who arrived in Galkayo on Tuesday.

Obama tackles healthcare critics

US President Barack Obama has accused some opponents of his healthcare reform proposals of trying to "scare the heck" out of people.

Anti-reform campaigners had created "bogeymen out there that just aren't real", he said at a town-hall style meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Passing a healthcare reform bill is Mr Obama's top domestic priority for 2009.

But in recent weeks, opponents of reform have been making serious accusations about his proposals.

The former Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, said last week that the president wanted to set up "death panels" of government officials with the power to determine whether disabled or elderly Americans are "worthy of healthcare".

In fact, under proposals drawn up by the US House of Representatives, the government would pay for elderly Americans to receive voluntary consultations with doctors to discuss their end-of-life care.

"The rumour that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma because we've decided that its too expensive to let her live anymore," said Mr Obama.

"Somehow, it has gotten spun into this idea of death panels. I am not in favour of that, I want to clear the air here."

Meetings disrupted

Some 47 million Americans currently do not have health insurance, and rising healthcare costs are a major contributing factor to America's spiralling budget deficit.

But there is disagreement about how to go about reforming the system.

Car bombs kill eight in Baghdad

At least eight people have been killed in two car bomb attacks in east Baghdad, Iraqi police say.

The bombs - one near a residential building and one near a cafe - detonated in the Shia district of al-Amin within five minutes of each other.

At least 30 people were injured in the blasts, police said.

The attacks come a day after 18 people were killed in Baghdad and at least 28 in a Shia village near the northern city of Mosul in bombings.

Violence has increased since US troops pulled back from Iraqi cities a month ago, handing over security to Iraqis.

On Tuesday, Iraqi security forces discovered a roadside bomb in the same area of al-Amin area of Baghdad and detonated it, according the Reuters news agency.