Iraq Thirty marines and a sailor died in a helicopter crash, the biggest single US loss of life in Iraq, but President George W. Bush remained upbeat, urging Iraqis to brave death threats and make history by going to the polls on Sunday. US Ten people were killed and more than 100 injured when two commuter trains slammed into each other after one of them hit a car left on the lines by a suicidal man, police said. Iraq At least 15 people were killed and 30 wounded in a truck bombing outside the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq that was claimed by an Al-Qaeda linked militant group. Auschwitz Events to mark the liberation 60 years ago of the Auschwitz death camp began with an ecumenical prayer service in a southern Polish village where the Nazis dumped ashes of many of the victims of the camp's gas chambers and crematoria. Mideast Israel and the Palestinians resumed political contacts on and finalised a deal to deploy thousands of Palestinian security forces to curb attacks in southern and central Gaza. US President George W. Bush predicted that weekend elections in Iraq would be "a grand moment" in that country's history despite a deadly campaign of violence by insurgents eager to derail the vote. US The US Senate confirmed Condoleezza Rice as US secretary of state, after blistering Democratic attacks over Iraq that heralded a fierce partisan debate on foreign policy in the coming years. US The four Britons freed from US detention at Guantanamo Bay were released from a British prison without charge after a day in custody, police said. Britain Britain is to end a policy of jailing foreign terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial following a landmark legal ruling which declared that it contravened human rights law, the government announced. Forum In successive appeals to some of the world's business and political elites, Britain's Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac of France called for a concerted international effort to stem the twin ravages of disease and poverty hobbling the poorest nations.