Ukraine Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma called for an end to mass opposition protests over contested presidential elections but also agreed to meet with the opposition in the presence of European mediators in a bid to resolve a five-day political crisis. Ukraine Russia slammed European mediation in Ukraine as unlawful intervention, widening a Cold War-like rift between Moscow and Western capitals over the political standoff in the former Soviet republic. Ukraine About 25,000 supporters of Ukraine's pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich gathered in central Kiev and planned to march on the square where the opposition has been protesting the disputed presidential election. Mideast A close associate of popular Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti was visiting him in jail to discuss his plan to run for the presidency in January despite the party's choice of another candidate. Iraq Four employees of a British security firm were killed in an attack on Baghdad's fortified "Green Zone", a company spokesman in Dubai said. Iran Iran insisted it was honoring a pledge to freeze atomic activities, but remained at odds with European countries in talks here by demanding that key equipment should be exempted from the deal. IAEA The UN atomic agency was expected to let South Korea off the hook for making small amounts of weapons-grade plutonium, a violation of nuclear safeguards, by allowing Seoul to escape a referral to the UN Security Council. China The confirmed death toll from a fire at an iron ore mine complex in northern China rose to 68 as rescuers hauled three more bodies from the shafts, state media reported. Indonesia At least 17 people were killed, over 130 injured and more than 300 homes destroyed when an earthquake hit a town in Indonesia's Papua province for the second time in nine months, officials said. China A mystery attacker stabbed eight teenagers to death as they slept and injured four others after breaking into a school dormitory, in Ruzhou city in central Henan province, the latest brutal attack on children in China. Russia Russia will allow Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to visit a southern Buddhist Russian region for the first time, the foreign ministry said, in a move certain to anger China. Equatorial Guinea South African Nick du Toit was sentenced by a court in Equatorial Guinea to 34 years in jail for playing a key role in a plot to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Myanmar The 9,248 Myanmar jail inmates promised freedom under the military regime's mass release programme will all be out by Friday night but with only 40 dissidents among them, according to the opposition and a senior prison official.