World in brief

City of lights dims briefly

PARIS - French power workers cut electricity to the Eiffel Tower and President Jacques Chirac's residence in western Paris on Wednesday to protest the government's plans to partially privatize state utilities in an effort to raise money.

Electricity was shut down at the presidential Elysee Palace, several government ministries and the Champs-Elysees avenue for about 15 minutes Wednesday afternoon. Some stores evacuated shoppers.

At the Eiffel Tower, tourists did not notice the outage because a backup electric plan kicked in, officials at the monument said.

The power outages affected homes and offices in western Paris. Power authorities said 52,000 clients were hit.

The CGT trade union said the outages were part of attempts to force the conservative government to drop plans to transform Electricite de France and Gaz de France - known by their acronyms EDF and GDF - from state agencies into limited companies.

JERUSALEM - Israel's opposition Labor Party backed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a crucial parliamentary vote Wednesday, a day after he was cleared of corruption charges - boosting Sharon's plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip.

Labor was sending signals of readiness to join Sharon's government to promote the Gaza move, but there was stiff opposition from party members on both sides. Also, a poll showed the public was not behind a Sharon-Labor team.

FOUR DIE IN AFGHANISTAN: A bomb hit a car used by NATO-led peacekeepers in northern Afghanistan Wednesday, killing four civilians including two children, police said. The attack came a week after 11 Chinese workers were shot in their beds in the same province and a day after President Bush lauded Afghanistan as the "first victory in the war on terror."

RAID IN PAKISTAN: Pakistani forces Wednesday fought off militants who attacked two military posts in a lawless tribal region near Afghanistan with rocket launchers and machine guns. One soldier and five militants were killed. The fighting in South Waziristan came days after a major army operation against al-Qaida suspects that killed at least 72 people.

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