Iraq Eight US marines were killed in weekend clashes with rebels in Al-Anbar province, the military said, while at least seven Iraqis were killed and 19 wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded at a checkpoint outside the highly-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Monday. Iraq The US military denied that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was on a hunger strike, a year to the day after he was captured. Mideast Israeli helicopter gunships fired rockets into densely-populated Gaza City in a swift response to a daring attack on an army post which left five soldiers and two Palestinian militants dead. Romania Opposition candidate Traian Basescu looked set to win the Romanian presidency, gaining 51.7 percent of votes after almost all the ballots from the election had been counted, the election commission said. Ukraine Ukraine's election campaign heated up ahead of a December 26 rerun vote as opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko again accused the authorities of trying to poison him with dioxin. China Rescuers furiously pumped water from a shaft at a flooded mine in southwest China where 36 workers are missing and feared dead as the country reels from another disaster in the danger-plagued industry. Philippines Security forces across the Philippines were on full alert as police probed a bombing that claimed 14 lives and wounded scores of other people in the southern port city of General Santos, officials said. US US oil giant Unocal Corp. has agreed in principle to settle a lawsuit brought by Myanmar villagers who accused it of complicity in human rights abuses, including slave labour, during the building of a pipeline. Spain Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told an inquiry into the March 11 attacks in Madrid that "international terrorism of the Islamic radical type" was solely to blame for them. US Skies and calm seas set the stage for progress in assessing an oil spill in an Alaskan wildlife refuge, officials said.