World datelines

Afghanistan

KABUL — Two U.S. Marines were killed and another wounded in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, where troops are hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, the U.S. military said Friday.

KABUL — With armed Afghan guards at the gate and a Democrat donkey mascot munching leaves in the shade, dozens of American expatriates held a fund-raiser in Kabul on Friday for U.S. presidential hopeful John Kerry.

Cuba

HAVANA — A writer whose published diary entries offered a glimpse of life behind bars in Cuba has been released from prison, becoming the sixth of the 75 dissidents jailed last year in a major crackdown to be freed. Manuel Vazquez Portal, 52, was released late Wednesday from Boniato Prison in the eastern city of Santiago.

Germany

DUESSELDORF — Vandals sprayed swastikas and Nazi SS symbols on more than 40 graves at a Jewish cemetery in western Germany, police said Friday.

Greece

ATHENS — A temporary elevator will help visitors unable to climb steps reach the Acropolis — the first such alteration in the ancient site's 2,500-year history, the culture ministry said Friday.

Indonesia

JAKARTA — Human rights activists on Friday rejected the U.S. description of an Indonesian man accused of murdering two American schoolteachers as a separatist rebel. The rights groups said Anthonius Wamang, far from being a member of the Free Papua Movement, has close ties to the Indonesian military, which is fighting the insurgency in the remote West Papua province.

Iran

TEHRAN — A gasoline tanker truck slammed into a row of packed buses, setting off fiery explosions that killed at least 71 people and injured 108 in southeastern Iran, officials said Friday. Many of the victims were burned alive because firefighting equipment had to arrive from Zahedan, about 70 miles away, said Heidar Ali Nouraei, the city's governor.

Japan