World datelines

Afghanistan: Arrested

KABUL — The deputy mayor of Kabul was arrested Saturday for alleged misuse of authority, a senior Afghan official said, part of a crackdown in the wake of massive international criticism of corruption in President Hamid Karzai's government.

Wahibuddin Sadat was taken into custody at Kabul International Airport when he returned from Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

England: Blair on Iraq

LONDON — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found another justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction.

"I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat," Blair told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast today. Blair was former U.S. President George W. Bush's staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Honduras: Asylum OK'd

TEGUCIGALPA — The interim government of Honduras says it would allow ousted President Manuel Zelaya to seek asylum outside Central America.

The announcement appears to seek a compromise with Zelaya allowing him to emerge from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa without fear of arrest on the charges of treason and abuse of power that led to his June ouster. He took refuge there after sneaking back into Honduras Sept. 21.

Iraq: Tip on bombings

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces were tipped off to last week's suicide bombings in Baghdad just hours before the blasts killed 127 people, a Shiite lawmaker said Saturday after a closed-door parliamentary briefing by the nation's defense minister.

But the tip was too vague and came too late to stop the bombings, Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi told lawmakers, according to legislator Haider al-Ibadi, who attended the discussion.

Japan: Mozart's violin

TOKYO — A child's violin played by Mozart when he was 6 years old resonated with music for the first time in Japan on Friday during a special concert held at the National Art Center in Minato Ward, Tokyo.