Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged the country to unite after an election lauded by world leaders as a historic breakthrough that must not be undermined by sectarian conflict. Iraq A total of 10 military personnel died aboard a British transport plane that crashed in Iraq, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said. Kuwait Kuwaiti security forces fought their biggest battle yet with suspected Islamist militants, killing four including a Saudi and arresting the radicals' spiritual leader and five others, the interior ministry and state TV said. UN The UN war crimes court in The Hague sentenced former Yugoslav general Pavle Strugar to eight years in prison for his role in the 1991 siege of the medieval Croatian town of Dubrovnik. US The celebrity trial of the century was set to open, with pop superstar Michael Jackson insisting he would be found innocent of accusations of child molestation. Mideast Russia pledged its "active" support for visiting Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas amid growing signs of a revival in the long-dormant Middle East peace process. France A major trial aimed at establishing responsibility for an inferno in the Mont-Blanc tunnel linking France and Italy that killed 39 people nearly six years ago opened. AfricanUnion African leaders were sitting down to their first full day of summit talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja, with the conflicts in the Sudanese region of Darfur and in Ivory Coast at the top of their agenda. EU The European Commission accused Croatia of failing to act on information that could lead to the arrest of a fugitive general whose fate is central to the country's EU membership bid. Britain The first of 12 foreign terrorism suspects still held indefinitely without charge in British jails was granted bail, after the government was forced to amend its anti-terror policy. Mideast A 10-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead by Israeli troops at a United Nations-run school in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Palestinian medical and UN sources said.