Nation/world roundup

Fatah forecast to win Palestinian parliament vote

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Amid tight security and a sea of green and yellow flags, Palestinians turned out in record numbers Wednesday for their first parliamentary election in a decade. Exit polls projected that the ruling Fatah Party would win the most seats, but showed that Islamic militants made a strong showing. Voter turnout in the historic balloting was 77.7 percent of 1.3 million eligible voters, the Central Election Commission said. In the 1996 parliamentary election, turnout was about 75 percent.

Pope Encyclical mandates charity

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday in his first encyclical that the Roman Catholic Church has no desire to govern states or set public policy, but can't remain silent when its charity is needed to ease suffering around the world. In the long-awaited document "God is Love," Benedict explores the relationship between God's love for mankind and the church's works of charity, saying the two are intrinsically linked and the foundation of the Christian faith.

Google agrees to censor results in China

SHANGHAI, China -- Google Inc. launched a search engine in China on Wednesday that censors material about human rights, Tibet and other topics sensitive to Beijing -- defending the move as a trade-off granting Chinese greater access to other information. Within minutes of the launch of the new site bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," searches for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement showed scores of sites omitted and users directed to articles condemning the group posted on Chinese government Web sites.

Bush: Bin Laden should be taken seriously

FORT MEADE, Md. -- President Bush, defending the government's secret surveillance program, said Wednesday that Americans should take Osama bin Laden seriously when he says he's going to attack again. "When he says he's going to hurt the American people again, or try to, he means it," Bush told reporters after visiting the top-secret National Security Agency where the surveillance program is based. "I take it seriously, and the people of NSA take it seriously."

Rumsfeld says military not overextended

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday disputed reports suggesting that the U.S. military is stretched thin and close to a snapping point from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, asserting "the force is not broken." "This armed force is enormously capable," Rumsfeld told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. "In addition, it's battle hardened. It's not a peacetime force that has been in barracks or garrisons."

From wire reports. E-mail news@thesantaclara.com.