India At least 31 people were killed and some 62,000 left homeless when heavy rains pounded coastal areas of India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal, reports said. US Hurricane Rita pounded the fragile Florida Keys islands before barreling into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico on a track that could take it close to devastated New Orleans. US Storm-weary residents began fleeing devastated New Orleans again as Hurricane Rita threatened the Gulf Coast three weeks after Katrina's deadly passage. OPEC OPEC's decision to make all of its crude oil available to the market is likely to be overshadowed in the short term by Hurricane Rita and in the long term by persistent fears that global demand will outstrip stocks. Mideast The Israeli army has announced its withdrawal from two more Jewish settlements, completing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's historic pullout from the Gaza Strip and a small corner of the northern West Bank. Indonesia A five-year-old Indonesian girl showing symptoms of bird flu has died in a Jakarta hospital, the deputy hospital director said. US A NASA orbiter has detected a series of dynamic geological and thermal changes on the surface of the red planet, possibly caused by a "Mars quake," mission scientists said. Germany German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) were to open talks on forming a ruling coalition to resolve the political deadlock created by an inconclusive general election. US A senior Pentagon official bluntly warned Taiwan it must invest in its own defenses against a growing threat from China if it expects the United States to come to its aid in a crisis. Iraq Tension ran high in southern Iraq after British troops freed two undercover soldiers taken hostage by a Shiite militia, as the American death toll in bomb attacks rose to nine over a two-day period. NKorea US officials played down as a negotiating tactic North Korea's refusal to scrap its nuclear weapons program without first seeing concessions from the United States. US The Pentagon lifted a stay on a trial by military commission of Australian David Hicks, clearing the way for the resumption of trials of war-on-terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.