Iraq A string of car bombings killed at least 19 Iraqis and wounded more than 70 in the Baghdad region, as insurgents stepped up attacks after the formation of Iraq's first democratically elected government. Mideast President Vladimir Putin became the first ever Russian leader to visit Palestinian territory where he was expected to offer aid for chairman Mahmud Abbas's threadbare security forces. China The heads of Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang Party and China's ruling Communist Party met for the first time in nearly 60 years in an effort to reduce tensions across the Taiwan Strait. Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to steer the election debate away from Iraq and back to domestic issues ahead of May 5, even as a mother who lost a son in the war pledged to take the government to court. Cuba Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro have struck a potentially lucrative oil deal and opened a branch of a major Venezuelan bank here that will handle increasing trade between the two countries, in open defiance of the United States. China China reiterated its opposition to any measures by the United States and Europe to restrict its booming, multi-billion dollar textile exports, seeing them as a violation of free trade principles and existing trade protocols. US US President George W. Bush used a rare prime-time news conference to promote two embattled domestic priorities and defend his multilateral approach to the North Korean nuclear crisis. India Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he will push a strategic and trade partnership with India as the world's biggest democracy moves closer to China. US North Korea is able to mount a nuclear warhead on missiles that could hit the United States, a senior US defense official said in a startling assessment of the hardline communist state's military capability. Togo The European Union appealed for calm in Togo after a German cultural center was fire bombed and an opposition leader's house surrounded for several hours by the army following disputed presidential elections.