WORLD BRIEFS

IRAN

'Punishing' world powers

Iran will not hold talks with the West over its nuclear program until late August to "punish" world powers for imposing tougher sanctions against the country, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday. He vowed that Iran would retaliate should its ships be searched over suspicions that the cargo may violate the new sanctions approved by the UN Security Council earlier this month.

VATICAN: Vienna cardinal rebuked

The Vatican issued an unprecedented rebuke Monday of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups. The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children.

MEXICO: Guv candidate killed

Gunmen assassinated the front-running candidate for governor of a border state Monday in what President Felipe Calderón called an attempt by drug gangs to sway local and state elections this weekend. The vehicle of Rodolfo Torre of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, was ambushed as he headed to the airport in Ciudad Victoria, capital of Tamaulipas. On Saturday, Norteño singer Sergio Vega, 40, was shot dead near Los Mochis in Sinaloa state.