World briefs 7/5/06

Kazakh president, daughter merge parties

ASTANA, Kazakhstan -- The parties of Kazakhstan's leader and his eldest daughter announced a merger Tuesday, a move that tightens President Nursultan Nazarbayev's grip on power. The merger appears to be part of Nazarbayev's recent move to cut down on Dariga Nazarbayeva's growing political clout in this oil-rich ex-Soviet republic following a dispute triggered by the killing of an opposition leader that she tried to use to attack some of her father's allies. The merger of Nazarbayev's Otan party with his daughter's Asar party creates one with 700,000 members.

Five Afghan laborers for U.S. base killed

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A bomb exploded Tuesday in downtown Kabul, wounding at least 10 people, and five Afghan laborers were ambushed and fatally shot on their way to a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, police and officials said. The bomb in the Afghan capital had been planted in a hand cart behind a car, said police official Mohammed Nabi. The explosion took place at a busy traffic intersection near the presidential palace, shattering windows at a cinema and the nearby Justice Ministry. Six of the 10 people wounded were hospitalized, said Health Ministry official Buz Mohammad Qadiri.

Paris pays homage to Jefferson, Parks

PARIS -- France marked the Fourth of July by honoring Thomas Jefferson with a statue and Rosa Parks with a sports complex. The mayors of Paris and Washington did the honors. "This is a great monument to a great American in a very important place in Paris," Washington Mayor Anthony Williams said as the bronze, 10-foot-tall statue of Jefferson was unveiled on the Left Bank of the Seine River, near the Solferino Bridge. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe called Jefferson a "universal man ... inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment." He called the third U.S. president "a great man, a great Parisian." Earlier, the two mayors unveiled a huge black-and-white photograph of Parks at the entrance to a sports complex in southern Paris inaugurated in March in her name. The American civil rights hero died in October.

-- From wire reports