Germany German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called for a general election to be moved forward to late this year after his Social Democrats suffered a devastating defeat in a key state election. Japan-China Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi cancelled a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that had been billed as a way to resolve bilateral tension and warned Tokyo it must work to turn around ties. India A third explosion wounded at least one person in the Indian capital, just hours after bomb attacks on two cinemas showing a controversial Sikh film killed one person and injured 49, police said. Iraq US and Iraqi forces launched a massive operation involving more than 2,000 troops to crack down on insurgents on the western outskirts of Baghdad, the US military said. Iraq Three Romanian journalists captured in Iraq nearly two months ago have been set free as an Iraqi court handed down death sentences for the first time in the anti-insurgency crackdown. Iraq-US The group of Al-Qaeda frontman in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed to have executed an Iraqi-American businessman who was kidnapped four days earlier in Baghdad. China China was immersed in the Herculean task of vaccinating three million birds, while state media urged people not to panic over the first confirmed case of bird flu since last year. Mongolia Socialist former prime minister Nambar Enkhbayar was declared winner of Mongolia's presidential election, and vowed to bring unity to the fledgling democracy after a politically unstable year. Iran The Iranian regime was facing fresh protests after powerful clerics disqualified reformists from standing in next month's presidential elections and approved just six, mostly hardline candidates. France France entered a last week of campaigning ahead of next weekend's referendum on the EU's constitutional treaty, with polls pointing to a stunning defeat for President Jacques Chirac and other supporters of the text. SKorea-NKorea North Korean cargo ships arrived in South Korea for the first time in two decades to pick up fertilizer aid and take it back to the impoverished communist state, officials said.