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I'm David Deforest from the VOA News Center in Washington.

Britain says it has frozen most diplomatic contacts with Iran until Iran frees 15 British naval personnel it captured on Friday. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett announced the new policy today in an address to parliament in London. Iran says the two countries are capable of resolving the crisis over the 15 Britons through cooperation. Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki says the one woman among the group could be released later today or Thursday. Meanwhile a senior British official has presented evidence that the 15 naval personnel seized last Friday were inside Iraqi territorial waters. VOA's Sonja Pace reports from London.

Vice Admiral Charles S presented maps and GPS coordinates of the British patrol boats and the merchant vessel the British personnel had just finished searching when they were seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The position was twenty-nine degrees fifty point three six minutes north, zero four eight degrees forty three point zero eight minutes east and this place is a one point seven nmiles inside Iraqi territorial waters.

The Vice Admiral said there was clear evidence the British sailors were ambushed. Iran insists the patrol boats were inside Iranian waters. The Iranians have said the British naval personnel are being treated well but they have not allowed British officials access to them. Sonja Pace, VOA news, London.

Iraqi officials say gunmen have killed about 50 people in a Sunni district in the northern town of Tal Afar in an apparent reprisal for truck bombings Tuesday in a Shiite area. Iraqi officials say Shiite policemen allegedly took part in the revenge. In the western city of Falluja, the US military says suicide truck bombers carrying toxic chlorine attacked the government center today. The military says the attack was turned back but 15 US and Iraqi security personnel were wounded.

Arab leaders are meeting in Saudi Arabia for a summit expected to relaunch a plan calling for normalized relations with Israel if Israel withdraws from land captured in the 1967 Mideast War. The two-day summit of the 22-member Arab League opened in Riyadh today. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the plan with some changes could become a basis for talks between Israel and moderate Arab states.

Authorities in Nigeria say at least 83 people have burned to death while trying to gather fuel from an overturned gasoline tanker. The fuel truck overturned Monday evening in the northern state of C.

The owner of a day-care center in the Philippine capital Manila who took a bus load of his students and teachers hostage has released them and surrendered. The man and a comp freed the 31 preschoolers and two teachers Wednesday evening outside Manila city hall about ten hours after the incident began. Both men were taken into custody. The hostage-taker had demanded authorities provide free education and housing for the 145 children.

Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been released from police custody after being detained earlier today. Tsvangirai spoke with VOA following his release. Lawyers with the opposition movement for democraticchange say at least 20 other figures remain in custody.

A large force of well-armed militants has overwhelmed a Pakistani village near the country's border with Afghanistan. From Islamabad, VOA correspondent Benjamin Sand has a report.

Local residents say as many as five hundred militants launched the pre-dawn raid Wednesday in the town of T in Pakistan's northeast frontier province. The attackers launched mortars and rocket propelled grenades at a local police station and kidnapped a school principal before leaving town. Major General Wahid Arshad, the military spokesman, says the overnight battle lasted several hours and both sides suffered casualties.

There was fighting between the police and these people at the police station.

He says the attack was apparently response to clashes outside a local boy school earlier this week, which left at least two suspected militants dead. Arshad and other Pakistani officials say the militants who are apparently Pakistanis themselves were trying to recruit children as suicide bombers when the police intervened. Officials say security forces have regained control of the town and are actively pursuing the militants in the surrounding countryside. Benjamin Sand, VOA news, Islamabad.

I'm David Deforest. We have more news on the Internet at voanews.com.