World datelines

Iraq: School casualties

BAGHDAD — An explosion near a school in the Sadr City district of Baghdad wounded scores of children and killed at least one on Monday, while attacks on Iraq's security forces continued.

Government officials gave contradictory school casualty figures, with the death toll varying from 1 to 15 children and the number of wounded from 41 to 56.

There were competing theories about the explosion's cause. In a statement read on state television by Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, a spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command, the government attributed it to an accidental detonation of a cache of explosives hidden near the school. Earlier reports from local security officials suggested that it could have been a result of an errant rocket or a planted explosive.

China: Students killed

BEIJING — Eight youths were killed and 26 injured when students descending a crowded staircase after evening classes at a school in central China lost their footing amid a crush of bodies, state media and the local government reported Tuesday.

Students were rushing out of evening study sessions at 9:10 p.m. on Monday at Xiangxiang city's private Yucai Middle School when some lost their footing and began to fall on top of one another in a stampede on the steps.

More than 400 students had been exiting classrooms via an enclosed stairwell just 4 feet wide, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Romania: Vote fraud?

BUCHAREST — Romania's main opposition party claimed Monday that President Traian Basescu narrowly won re-election through a fraudulent vote.

The Social Democrats said left-leaning former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana actually won Sunday's run-off, an election seen as crucial to addressing a government crisis and the country's painful recession.

With 99.95 percent of the vote counted, election authorities said centrist Basescu polled 50.33 percent of the vote, while Geoana received 49.66 percent. But Liviu Dragnea of the Social Democrats said there were too many voided ballots — a total of 138,000 — more than enough to make up the approximately 70,000 vote difference between the two candidates.

Canada: Protest

TORONTO — Members of Greenpeace easily breached security and scaled two Parliament buildings in Ottawa to stage a protest on the roof Monday, the opening day of the climate conference in Copenhagen.