A blockade around a remote northwest Chinese town where deadly pneumonic plague killed three people and sickened nine was lifted after no new infections were reported, an official said Sunday. The blockade of Ziketan in an ethnically Tibetan area in Qinghai province ended Saturday night after 10 days, said a government spokesman who would only give his surname, Wang.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition and an ethnic Tamil party seen as a front for the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels have won the first postwar elections, held near the island’s former battlefields.

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez announced he is sending his ambassador back to Colombia, signaling a willingness to ease a diplomatic impasse while still insisting Venezuela will oppose Colombia’s plan to increase the U.S. military presence at its bases.

Senior Taliban commanders denied their leader was killed in a CIA missile strike in Pakistan while conflicting reports emerged of a clash between rival factions during a meeting to choose a successor.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras’ coup-installed president says an OAS delegation traveling to the Central American country next week won’t persuade him to allow the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Roberto Micheletti says the diplomats are welcome to come and learn about what led to Zelaya’s June 28 ouster, but he vows that “no one will come here to give us orders.”

Guatemala’s top three police officials have been fired after hundreds of pounds of cocaine allegedly disappeared from a shipment seized by authorities.

Indonesian police stormed a house Saturday where the regional militant leader suspected in last month’s attacks on hotels in the capital was believed hiding out with several followers, witnesses and police said.

President Barack Obama and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts have lots to talk about.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Taliban chief was killed by a CIA missile strike, a militant commander confirmed Friday — a severe blow to extremists threatening the stability of this nuclear-armed nation and a possible boost to U.S.-Pakistani cooperation in fighting insurgents who wreak havoc along the Afghan border.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who unleashed a fearsome campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations that made him the country’s most-wanted man, was killed in a U.S. missile strike, an aide said Friday.