World datelines

Australia

BRISBANE — The first international air and naval exercise in a U.S.-led plan to stamp out global trade in weapons of mass destruction began Saturday off Australia's northeast coast, as North Korea branded the drill a "military provocation." The 11-nation operation, dubbed Exercise Pacific Protector, is the first by the signatories to the Proliferation Security Initiative proposed by President Bush in May to stop illegal weapons shipments by air, land or sea.

China

NANJING — Zheng Enchong, a lawyer who has helped people in the burgeoning metropolis of Shanghai bring more than 500 cases against developers, was tried last month on charges of revealing state secrets in what other lawyers have said was a move by the government to stop lawyers from taking such cases. He has yet to be sentenced. Zheng was arrested because he told his clients that Shanghai's wealthiest man, Zhou Zhengyi, obtained a 360,000-square-foot swath of land in the city's center for free by bribing senior officials.

Germany

BERLIN — German authorities arrested three more suspected neo-Nazis believed to be plotting to bomb a groundbreaking ceremony for a Munich synagogue, a prosecutors' spokeswoman said Saturday. With those arrests Friday, at least 10 people across Germany have been taken into custody in the last week on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist plot to attack the ceremony. The groundbreaking is planned for Nov. 9, the anniversary of the Nazis' 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom in which thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues were vandalized.

India

SRINAGAR — Suspected Islamic rebels killed a former lawmaker as gunbattles and other violence escalated across Indian-controlled Kashmir on Saturday, leaving 20 people dead and 37 wounded, police said. India and Pakistani troops also traded artillery fire along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between the two nations, but no casualties were reported, a police official said.

Italy

LONDON — Scientists from around the world are meeting this weekend to discuss how to reduce the risk of flood waters in the celebrated Italian canal city of Venice. Around 100 scientists from a variety of disciplines are expected to attend a four-day conference that begins today at Cambridge University's Churchill College.

Ivory Coast