Mideast Doctors were rushed to the bedside of ailing Yasser Arafat at his West Bank headquarters as a top official said the 75-year-old Palestinian leader was in a critical condition. Iraq Hundreds of British soldiers leave southern Iraq on a risky mission to free up US forces for a possible assault on rebel-held Fallujah, as a kidnapped British woman pleads in a new video for the withdrawal of British troops and the release of Iraqi women prisoners. Iraq US soldiers who first entered a site from which 350 tonnes of high explosives have been reported missing conducted only a cursory search after capturing it because their priority was to continue the march on Baghdad, their commander said Wednesday. EU The European Union plunged into crisis as its new executive chief backed down in the face of imminent defeat by EU lawmakers furious at his backing for an outspoken conservative on his team. US A missing stash of explosives in Iraq held center stage again in the steamrolling US election campaign, with challenger John Kerry hammering President George W. Bush for "dodging" the issue and Bush dismissing the allegations as "wild charges." US A new poll suggested swing voters were starting to break for Democratic candidate John Kerry, but the White House race remained tantalizingly unpredictable six days before the election. Iran Iran's supreme guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Tehran could break off nuclear talks with the international community if it insisted on a long-term suspension of uranium enrichment. Thailand Thailand's premier announced an inquiry into the death of 78 Muslim protesters who were rounded up by troops and crammed into trucks, amid international protests and fears of further violence in the tense region. Japan Rescue workers found two young children and the body of their mother four days after their car was buried by a landslide, as the death toll from Japan's earthquake and aftershocks rose to 32.