In Brief

* END OF AN ERA – Serbia looked to turn the page on Slobodan Milosevic after burying the former leader, ending a bloody era but posing the question of where the country goes next.

* DARFUR PEACE – United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the Sudanese government to back plans to deploy UN peacekeepers in its troubled western Darfur region. * VIOLENCE – A mortar bomb exploded in the holy Shi’ite city of Karbala on the eve of a major religious ceremony, highlighting Iraq’s worsening sectarian crisis three years after the US-led invasion.* THAI DEMOS – Thousands of slogan-chanting opposition demonstrators took to the streets of the Taiwanese capital in the second rally in a week protesting against President Chen Shui-bian.* IRAQ WARNING – One day after a wave of antiwar protests swept the world, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned a quick US pullout from Iraq would result in terrorists taking it over – and insisted it would be tantamount to handing Germany back to the Nazis.* BIN POLL – Voters in the west African nation of Benin voted for a new president to replace long-serving President Mathieu Kerekou in run-off polls overshadowed by last minute confusion.- Nampa-AFP-Reuters* VIOLENCE – A mortar bomb exploded in the holy Shi’ite city of Karbala on the eve of a major religious ceremony, highlighting Iraq’s worsening sectarian crisis three years after the US-led invasion.* THAI DEMOS – Thousands of slogan-chanting opposition demonstrators took to the streets of the Taiwanese capital in the second rally in a week protesting against President Chen Shui-bian.* IRAQ WARNING – One day after a wave of antiwar protests swept the world, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned a quick US pullout from Iraq would result in terrorists taking it over – and insisted it would be tantamount to handing Germany back to the Nazis.* BIN POLL – Voters in the west African nation of Benin voted for a new president to replace long-serving President Mathieu Kerekou in run-off polls overshadowed by last minute confusion.- Nampa-AFP-Reuters