Mideast Ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was flown out of his West Bank headquarters on a Jordanian military helicopter, headed for treatment in Paris for a potentially fatal blood disorder. Iraq The body of an Asian person was found in the Iraqi city of Tikrit but it was not immediately known if it was that of a Japanese hostage threatened with execution, Kyodo News reported. Iraq Islamic militants claimed three more hostages in Iraq and the deaths of 11 Iraqi soldiers, as US researchers said 100,000 Iraqis have died since the US-led invasion. Iraq The Islamic Army in Iraq has announced it abducted a driver from Sri Lanka and another from Bangladesh who work for a Kuwaiti company, Al-Jazeera television said Thursday, showing footage of the pair. Iraq The Pentagon released an aerial photograph of the Iraqi facility where hundreds of tons of powerful explosives have gone missing, showing two trucks parked by a bunker just before the US-led invasion, as the issue took the forefront of the presidential race. US The bizarre disappearance of tens of thousands of ballots has fueled worries over Florida's ability to avert a repeat of the chaos of 2000, when Americans were kept guessing for 36 days who won the presidential vote. Afghanistan Armed men dressed in army uniforms abducted three foreign UN election workers in Kabul as final votes in Afghanistan's historical presidential poll were counted. Colombia President Alvaro Uribe said he was ready to negotiate a prisoner swap with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Thailand Two bomb blasts rocked southern Thailand injuring at least 18 people as fury mounted over the deaths of more than 80 Muslims in a wave of violence that has gripped the volatile region. EU Incoming EU chief Jose Manuel Barroso indicated he would bow to pressure to reshuffle his team as Italy's support for a conservative with outspoken views on gays and women as the EU's top justice official looked increasingly untenable. Zimbabwe Zimbabwe's parliament sentenced outspoken opposition white lawmaker Roy Bennett to a year in jail for shoving Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to the ground during a heated debate in May.