10 METRO Monday, November 2, 2009 D METROWorld AfghAnistAn: The challenger to President Hamid Karzai has withdrawn from next weekends election rerun, handing the incumbent a victory but raising doubts about the credibility of the government as the US seeks an effective partner in the war against the Taliban. Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said he made his decision after Mr Karzai turned down his demands for changes to the electoral system. BurmA: Police have set fire to 13.6million worth of methamphetamine tablets and other drugs seized after recent fighting with ethnic Kokang rebels forced more than 30,000 people to flee into China and left 26 government troops dead. In what was the biggest drug seizure in Burma this year, authorities confiscated 11.9million tablets from Kokang leaders in an area that is a haven for drug smuggling. ZimBABwe: The man who allegedly killed three of his children with an axe and wounded two others had attended a tribal ritual conducted by a witch doctor. In one of the countrys most brutal crimes in recent years Elmon Mupombwa, 41, also torched his home and killed his livestock before hanging himself. The three dead children were 11, seven and five, while two others were in critical condition in hospital. hondurAs: A US-brokered agreement could see the return to power of deposed President Manuel Zelaya (pictured) thereby putting an end to the countrys four- month-long political crisis. Diplomats have urged Congress not to delay approval of the pact which would see a unity government installed. Many countries have said they would not accept the results of the forthcoming elections if the June coup that deposed Mr Zelaya is not reversed. russiA: Firefighters told 999 callers to pull the udder one when they begged them to come to the rescue of a cow on the 13th floor of a tower block. Upon arrival at the incident in Chelyabinsk, rescue workers found the high-rise heifer trying to get into a lift. They then led it down the stairs to safety. irAn: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured) yesterday compared the power of Irans enemies to that of a mosquito, saying the country now deals with the West from a position of power. The comment came during negotiations over a new UN uranium enrichment plan. The plan would see Iran sending around 70 per cent of its stockpile of uranium to Russia for processing, preventing it from turning the nuclear fuel into weapons-grade uranium. People try to rescue Russian base jumper Valery Rozov after his parachute got stuck in a nearby building during a 29-storey (116m) base jump yesterday in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi. The jumper was attempting to express his solidarity with Pakistan for fighting against the Islamist militancy. Rozov was forced to give up after his parachute got stuck in a nearby building as a result of strong winds. Pictures: Reuters PENALTY CHUTE-OUT Rapists home became grisly burial groundBy RogeR weaTheRs THE bodies of six women found in the house of a convicted rapist could have been there for anything from weeks to years, police have said. The bodies, in varying states of decom- position, were found at the home of An- thony Sowell, 50, in Cleveland, Ohio, after police tried to serve an arrest and search warrant over a sex assault case. When members of the sex-crime unit and the Swat team went to execute the warrant, he had fled. Inside the house they found five bodies, and another outside. Coroner Frank Miller III said his office has yet to identify the victims, who all died of homicidal violence. They were mostly strangled, it appears, he said. Two badly decomposed bodies were found on the third floor, and another was found in a freshly dug grave under the stairs in the basement. Two more bodies were found in a crawl space, and a sixth was found in a shallow grave outside. Sowell, who collects scrap for a living, had spent 15 years in jail for a 1989 rape. About a month ago a woman accused him of rape and felonious assault, leading to the arrest and search warrant. He was arrested at the weekend after a tip-off. Rapist: sowell All 11 crew on board a Russian heavy-lift military cargo plane were killed after it hit a slag heap from an old mine on take-off and exploded in Mirny, Siberia Picture: AP index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html