In the World

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber driving a small sedan rammed into a minibus believed to be carrying foreign aviation workers near Kabul's airport, killing at least nine people, Afghan police said.

Kabul's police chief, Gen. Mohammad Ayub Salangi, said the explosion took place Tuesday on a large avenue northwest of the city center near Kabul International Airport.

The criminal director for Kabul's police, Mohammad Zahir, said at least eight men believed to be foreign nationals working for an aviation company at the airport were killed, as was their Afghan driver.

An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw at least six bodies next to the destroyed minivan, which was tossed about 50 yards by the explosion. - AP

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI's former butler and another Vatican employee will go on trial next week in the embarrassing theft of papal documents that exposed alleged corruption at the Holy See's highest levels.

Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre said Monday that the trial would begin Sept. 29.

Paolo Gabriele, who as butler in the papal apartments had served for several years as one of Benedict's closest aides, is accused of grand theft. Claudio Sciarpelletti, who has been temporarily suspended from his post as a computer specialist in the Holy See office of Secretariat of State, will be tried on a lesser charge, aiding and abetting the crime. - AP

HAVANA - A prominent Cuban dissident completed her first week on a hunger strike Monday, with supporters saying her condition was worsening each day and they feared she might die. Pro-government bloggers, meanwhile, denounced the strike as a sham.

Martha Beatriz Roque, a 67-year-old, state-trained economist turned dissident leader, was in a "very delicate" condition, said Idania Yanez, a supporter who was standing vigil at her Havana home.

Roque, who suffers from diabetes, launched her strike Sept. 10 and dissidents say she has been joined by more than two dozen others around the country. She is demanding the government release a little-known opposition prisoner who she says was due to leave jail more than a week ago, among other things. - AP

KANO, Nigeria - Soldiers manning a checkpoint in northern Nigeria shot to death two ranking members of a radical Islamist sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year alone, a military official said Monday.

Slain were the spokesman for the sect known as Boko Haram and a commander who operated in Kogi state, the official said.

The shooting occurred Monday morning in Mariri, a town southeast of Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's Muslim north. - AP