A view of Taj Mahal in Agra, India. (AFP Photo)

AGRA, India, Sept. 27--Hundreds of schoolchildren gathered outside India's Taj Mahal on Monday, releasing heart-shaped balloons and setting free white pigeons to mark the 350th birthday of the world's most famous monument of love, Reuters said.
Dozens of visitors at the white marble mausoleum built by Mughal emperor Shahjahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal were welcomed with marigold garlands and a vermilion mark on their forehead to the strains of Indian classical music.
Outside the monument, on the banks of the Yamuna River, a pair of actors dressed as Shahjahan and Mumtaz held hands, recreating the 17th century romance between the emperor and the nobleman's daughter.
"My main purpose is to get people to forget about war and live with love and affection. We must put hate behind, what better place than the Taj Mahal," said actor Rajan Kumar, dressed in a traditional Indian tunic, pearl strings and a turban with a long, white feather.
Officials and tour operators said the 350th anniversary of the Taj was an opportunity to lure tourists back to India after four years of a slow-down because of strife at home and abroad.
"This is a six-month-long celebration to highlight the Taj. Tourism had gone down because of the 9/11 attacks and problems with Pakistan," said Rajiv Tiwari, president of the Federation of Travel Association of Agra. "This is meant to send a message that it is worth your while to come to India and see the Taj Mahal."
Coinciding with the start of celebrations, the Supreme Court was due to hear a petition by the local government on Monday to allow night visits to the Taj, located in the polluted and congested city of Agra, about 200 km south of Delhi.

Mohamed ElBaradei

VIENNA, Sept. 27--A new board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog was to meet in Vienna Monday to set procedures for electing a new director general, with current chief Mohamed ElBaradei seeking to remain in office despite US opposition, AFP reported.
ElBaradei had earlier this month put his hat into the ring for a third term at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) despite opposition from the United States and possibly other top UN funding states to his continuing in the job.
US officials have said the United States, the largest contributor to the United Nations, supports the position of the Geneva group of top 10 contributors that heads of international organization should not serve more than two terms.
"This policy has nothing to do with the director general's qualifications. The United States thinks that he's done a very good job leading the agency at a very difficult time but it's simply a matter of principle and good governance," a Western official familiar with the US position said.
An IAEA spokesman said the board, which was elected last week at an IAEA general conference, "has to decide today procedures for the appointment of a new director general."
He said the board would probably close applications for candidacies by December 31 and seek to have the new director general named by a board meeting in June 2005, in order to be formally elected at the next IAEA general conference in September 2005.
ElBaradei, 61, who is Egyptian, has been at the Vienna-based IAEA for two decades and has as director general since 1997 become a world figure campaigning for nuclear non-proliferation.

RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia,
Sept. 27--Saudi security forces, battling a wave of Al-Qaeda attacks in the world's biggest oil exporter, clashed with suspected militants in the capital Riyadh on Sunday.
Police arrested one suspect after the shootout in the southern Shifa district, which broke out with the occupants of a car after it tried to speed away from a patrol, an Interior Ministry security spokesman told the Saudi Press Agency.
No policemen or bystanders were hurt, Reuters quoted the spokesman as saying.
Al-Qaeda militants have waged a campaign of suicide bombings and shootings in the kingdom since 2003 aimed at driving Westerners out and hurting the economy and oil industry.
The shootout in Riyadh came hours after a Frenchman who worked for French defense electronics firm Thales was shot dead in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah. It was the second such killing this month by suspected
Al-Qaeda militants.
Since the triple suicide bombings of expatriate housing compounds in Riyadh in May 2003, more than 150 people, including foreigners, security forces and militants have been killed.

AMMAN, Jordan, Sept. 27--Jordan has dismissed Israeli claims that part of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Beit-ul-Moqaddas is at risk of collapse, saying experts had checked it earlier this year, Reuters quoted the pro-government newspaper Al Rai as saying on Monday.
"There are no foundations for the Israeli warnings suggesting that the Marwani prayer room could collapse during the holy month of Ramadan," Religious Affairs Minister Ahmed Heleil told the newspaper.
Heleil, who heads a Jordanian committee responsible for the maintenance of the Al Aqsa mosque compound, said that a team of experts visited the site earlier this year and found no reason for concern.
"There are no problems concerning the foundations or the walls," he said.
Israeli Interior Minister Gideon Ezra raised fears on Sunday about the possible collapse of part of the compound because of the number of visitors during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins mid-October.
Ezra said work to strengthen the mosque plaza, the third holiest site in Islam, should start immediately to strengthen the underground Solomon's Stables section, which Muslims call the Marwani prayer room.
"The roof of this structure is at risk of collapsing under the weight of the worshippers who will assemble there during the Ramadan," Ezra said.
"It is necessary to build pillars to support the southern wall of this structure and if this doesn't happen, the police will limit access to the mosque compound during Ramadan," he said.

DUBAI, UAE,
Sept. 27--At least five workers were killed and an unspecified number injured on Monday when part of the ceiling of a building under construction at Dubai airport collapsed, Reuters quoted officials as saying.
The state-run United Arab Emirates news agency said the building site was part of a $4.1 billion expansion project for Dubai airport, one of the busiest in the Middle East.
The project is due to end in 2006.
"Five people were killed and others injured when a scaffolding at the site which is still under construction collapsed," a senior airport official told Reuters.
A hospital official said at least 10 people were being treated for injuries. Rescue teams were searching for more workers at the site.
Dubai, one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, is a rapidly growing regional trade and tourism hub.
The project includes a new terminal, which when complete, will raise the number of passengers handled by the airport to 46 million a year.

MADRID, Spain, Sept. 27--The Basque separatist group ETA has vowed to continue its armed struggle until its campaign for an independent homeland is won, the group warned in a video whose transcript was published Monday by the Basque newspaper Gara, AFP reported.
ETA in the video also criticized the French government for doing nothing to help the country's Basque people except "offer them a slow death".
It called for Basques in France and Spain to join together in their struggle for an independent homeland straddling northern Spain and southwestern France.
"The conflict will end when the rights of our people are recognized and respected," the group said in the video.
Gara said the video, which features three members of ETA in a wooded area, was filmed on Sunday, a day dedicated to Basque soldiers.
ETA has killed more than 800 people in its 36-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland. It has been weakened in recent years by a series of raids in France and Spain as well as a law banning its political wing Batasuna.

CHERBOURG, France, Sept. 27--A ship carrying Greenpeace activists arrived in the northern French port of Cherbourg Sunday to protest the arrival next month of 8two ships carrying 140 kilograms (308 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium from the United States, the environment protection group said.
The 72-metre (240-foot) Esperanza was authorized to berth in an area of the port under supervision, a local official told AFP.
Greenpeace and other ecology groups are organizing nationwide protests against the arrival of the plutonium which is to be recycled at a nuclear reprocessing facility at Cadarache, in southeastern France.
The ships, nicknamed "floating fortresses," left Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this month and are expected to arrive in Cherbourg around the end of the week.

Some Afghan women have already taken the major step of getting a voter registration card to take part in elections, Sept. 27. (AFP Photo)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 27--Female election commission educators in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar are persistent and brave, ignoring threats each day they criss-cross the city to convince women to vote, AFP said.
"Don't miss this chance. We are independent, we are human beings, we have rights. There is an election and it is up to us to decide who should be president," Shukria, 34, tells a small audience of women bakers in this former stronghold of the Islamist Taliban regime.
They listen from behind their veils because a man has slipped into the courtyard where they have gathered near the bread oven.
"What happens if you put crosses for two or three candidates?" asks one of the women.
"Can one woman take several (voting) cards and vote for the others?" asks another.
Holding a ballot paper, Shukria patiently explains the voting system for the historic October 9 election in which President Hamid Karzai and 17 others are contesting the presidency.
This morning, the main question concerns threats of violence around the polls which Taliban militants have pledged to disrupt.
"We have great concerns about our security," says one woman. "We have small children, we are scared for them." "We are happy with Karzai.
Since he came to power women can work, go to school, but we are concerned about security and suicide attacks," explains another.
"If you are scared about security, we have security. It is just propaganda. Don't be afraid. Please, for God's sake, this is a golden chance. It is not a Taliban government where you could not go out even if you were sick," Shukria says.
Some of the women have already taken the major step of getting a voter registration card to take part in the election. But contrary to national statistics which show 42 percent of registered voters are women, the Pashtun women of the south have often avoided the registration centers.
In the five southern provinces including Kandahar by mid-August, five days before registration ended, 1.2 million cards had been distributed with just 230,000, or 20 percent, going to women.