World datelines

Aruba

ORANJESTAD — The mother of an Alabama honors student missing in this Caribbean island for over two months said Monday the investigation into the teen's disappearance has been marred by ineptitude and more than doubled the reward for help in solving the case to $250,000. Natalee Holloway's mother, renewing criticism of authorities on the Dutch Caribbean island, said police had given her copies of statements from witnesses and other documents from the investigation that have led her to believe investigators are on the wrong track.

Australia

CANBERRA — Australia and China are negotiating an agreement to allow Australia to export uranium to China for peaceful purposes, the foreign minister said Tuesday. Preliminary talks are already under way to secure a Chinese commitment that the uranium would be used only for electricity generation, said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO — A former president has disclosed that the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for two decades tried to develop an atomic bomb but says the program was scrapped when an elected government assumed power in 1985. The 1964-85 dictatorship was long suspected of seeking nuclear weapons, but ex-President Jose Sarney's comments Sunday were the first confirmation of the program.

India

NEW DELHI — India and Pakistan agreed Monday to extend a 2-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir but did not discuss the question of reducing their military presence there, an Indian official said. Delegates at the talks also agreed not to develop new guard posts or defense installments along the cease-fire line dividing the Himalayan territory claimed by both nations, said Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for India's External Affairs Ministry.

Japan

TOKYO — Stung by defeat on a cherished economic reform, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will lead a bruised and fractured ruling party into elections next month amid the prospect of being ousted from power after almost 50 years of uninterrupted rule. Privatizing the post office's staggeringly rich savings account system has been a decade-long quest for Koizumi. But bills to break up Japan Post and create the world's biggest bank were rejected by Parliament's upper house Monday with the help of defectors from his own Liberal Democratic Party. Koizumi retaliated by dissolving the legislature's more powerful lower chamber and scheduling a Sept. 11 election for its 480 seats.