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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A Vietnamese diplomat and three Chinese tourists were kidnapped at gunpoint on their way to Rio de Janeiro's famed Christ the Redeemer statue but managed to escape from their captors a day later, police said on Sunday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said it had put a dummy satellite into orbit on a home-grown rocket for the first time on Sunday -- a move likely to increase Western concerns about its nuclear ambitions.

Belgrade (Reuters) - Serbia's foreign minister said on Sunday it was a mistake for the U.N. mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to hand over policing in the province to the European Union without the consent of Serbia and the U.N. Security Council.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Five Sudanese men, including a former army officer, made their first appearance in court on Sunday to face charges over the New Year's Day killing in Khartoum of a U.S. aid worker and his driver.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel confirmed on Sunday it would release 200 of some 11,000 Palestinians it holds prisoner in the hope of shoring up support for President Mahmoud Abbas and the peace talks he is conducting with the Jewish state.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon aims to complete steps towards establishing diplomatic ties with Syria within weeks, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was quoted as saying on Sunday.

BAGHDAD/KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims streamed home from Iraq's shrine city of Kerbala on Sunday at the end of an annual holy rite that passed without the factional violence that marred it last year.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The secretary general of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Sunday he believed a power-sharing deal with the country's ruling party will be reached soon.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has changed the venue for its independence celebration on Monday to an undisclosed location, an official said, after President Hamid Karzai survived an attempt on his life by Taliban in a military parade in April.

TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia announced it would begin withdrawing forces from Georgia on Monday after a war that dealt a humiliating blow to the Black Sea state and raised fears for energy supplies to Europe.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Almost 50 Tamil Tiger fighters and seven soldiers have been killed and an important rebel training base has been captured in fighting in Sri Lanka's north over the past two days, the military said on Sunday.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish fighter planes hit a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla base in northern Iraq, the army said on its website on Sunday.

MANILA (Reuters) - Muslim separatists killed at least seven Philippine soldiers and wounded a dozen more in an ambush on Sunday on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, the military said.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Attorney-General said on Sunday the latest plea by the three Bali bombers to the constitutional court would not affect plans for their execution.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's ruling coalition has prepared impeachment charges against President Pervez Musharraf focusing on violation of the constitution and misconduct, a coalition official said on Saturday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - With inflation rising across the Gulf Arab region, Saudi Arabia's perennial problem of unequal distribution of wealth has never been so obvious.

PARIS (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama said on Saturday China was mistreating and torturing civilians in Tibet while the Olympic Games were going on.

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on Saturday he plans to meet with Chevron Corp officials and lawyers for 30,000 jungle residents who are suing the U.S. oil giant for up to $16 billion over environmental damages.

MINSK (Reuters) - Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Kozulin, considered in the West to be the ex-Soviet state's most prominent political prisoner, was released on Saturday and is on his way home, his daughter said.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police arrested 10 people on Saturday who they said were behind bomb attacks which killed at least 45 people in the western city of Ahmedabad last month.