WORLD IN BRIEF: Frustrated crowd stones U.N. vehicles

Thousands of people displaced by fighting in eastern Congo stoned United Nations vehicles at a refugee camp in Kibati on Sunday in anger at the organization’s failure to protect them. Soldiers who had stopped the U.N. peacekeepers’ convoy at an impromptu roadblock dragged a group of men off the trucks, accusing them of being rebels. Peacekeepers said the group included 10 surrendered rebels, 10 police and three civilians. The refugees at Kibati, four miles north of the regional capital of Goma, are among 250,000 people driven from their homes by the latest round of a long-simmering rebellion in eastern Congo.

Carter entourage visits refugees

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited a church housing hundreds of Zimbabwean refugees Sunday in Johannesburg, South Africa, as he, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and South African rights advocate Graca Machel continued efforts to find ways to ease Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis, even though they have been barred from the country. Annan urged southern African countries to mount a regional effort to control a cholera epidemic raging in Zimbabwe, where the health system has collapsed and nearly 300 people have died.

Chavez pins hopes on local voting

Millions of Venezuelans turned out to choose state governors and mayors Sunday in elections that could force President Hugo Chavez to deal with more hostile opponents at the local level, or help him lay the groundwork to extend his rule beyond 2013, when his six-year term ends. “We’re prepared to recognize any result,” Chavez pledged after voting in Caracas. At least 106 people were detained by authorities during the voting.

Gunfire rattles leaders’ convoy

Shots were fired Sunday at a motorcade carrying Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczynski after the leaders had visited a camp for Georgian refugees near the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia, but no one was hurt. Meanwhile, Georgia’s opposition marked the Rose Revolution’s fifth anniversary with a rally in Tbilisi demanding the resignation of Saakashvili, whose popularity has plummeted amid slow economic development and anger over the devastating August war with Russia.

President safe after coup attempt

The president of Guinea-Bissau, Joao Bernardo Vieira, survived an apparent coup attempt in the West African nation Sunday, emerging unhurt from his bullet-scarred home hours after his guards repelled mutinous soldiers. At least one of his guards died and several others were injured. The U.N. says impoverished Guinea-Bissau is a key transit point for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe. Opposition leader and former President Kumba Yala has saidd Vieira is the country’s top drug trafficker.

Abbas threatens early ‘09 elections

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday threatened to call elections for the presidency and for the Palestinian parliament in early 2009 if unity talks between his Fatah faction and its militant Hamas rivals don’t begin by the beginning of the year. The factions’ violent split —- with Abbas’ moderate government ruling only the West Bank and the Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip —- has paralyzed the Palestinians’ fledgling democratic system.

COMING UP

> Police in Bangkok, Thailand, prepared barricades, schools canceled classes and zoo animals were moved to safety as the city braced for a huge anti-government protest today. Demonstrators are trying to block parliament from considering a bill to rewrite the constitution they say would allow ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to stage a comeback.

> U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, returning from a 21-nation economic summit in Peru, said Sunday that new talks on North Korea’s nuclear program will begin Dec. 8 in China and will try to get agreement on verification of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.