UKRAINE

A powerful natural-gas explosion ripped through an apartment building in eastern Ukraine, killing at least nine people and damaging other buildings, an emergency official said.

The blast destroyed much of the 10-story building in the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk, ripping off parts of the roof and blowing out dozens of windows.

Rescue workers recovered nine bodies, said Alexander Dmiterko, an official with the regional Emergency Situations Ministry.

Russian and Ukrainian news reports said the blast was so powerful that its shock wave damaged several other multistory apartment buildings and smaller houses.

AFGHANISTAN

7 dead, 29 injured in market bombing

A suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated his explosives in a crowded marketplace near Afghan police, killing seven people and injuring 29, officials said.

The blast killed two police officers and five civilians in the city of Spin Buldak in the southern province of Kandahar, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said.

Attacks against Afghan police have become a trademark of Taliban suicide bombers. More than 600 officers have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, the ministry has said.

VATICAN CITY

Cleric suspended in gay sex scandal

The Vatican said it had suspended a monsignor from a senior post at the Holy See after an Italian TV program using a hidden camera recorded him making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.

The Vatican did not identify the monsignor by name. But Msgr. Tommaso Stenico confirmed in a telephone interview with the Associated Press that he had been suspended from his post at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, an office that aims to ensure proper conduct by priests.

In the program on private Italian channel La7, a man identified as a priest is heard saying that he “didn’t feel he was sinning” by having sex with men.

Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.

MEXICO

Protesters egg, topple Fox statue

Opposition protesters egged and then tore down a bronze statue of former Mexican President Vicente Fox just hours after it was erected.

Workers put up the commemorative statue before dawn in the city of Boca del Rio, in Veracruz state.

But about 100 protesters surrounded the figure about 9 a.m. The crowd launched eggs at the statue, fastened a rope around its neck and pulled it to the ground.

THAILAND

6 Germans, guide die in flash floods

Six German tourists and a Thai tour guide died when they were swept away by flash floods while exploring a cave at a national park in southern Thailand, police said.

The group was trekking through the Khao Sok national park in Surat Thani province when a heavy rainfall caused flash floods that sent water surging through the cave, said police Lt. Col. Pichan Kanayasiri.

A German man and a Thai man were still believed missing, he said.

From Times Wire Reports