Around the world

BEIJING — The Meng brothers felt pretty good about their chances of making it out of the collapsed coal mine, until the sound of digging from outside stopped.

With no food or water, they were forced to eat coal and drink their own urine from discarded bottles. When they were too exhausted to try to dig themselves out, they slept huddled together in the cold and dark.

Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou finally clawed their way to the surface after nearly six days underground — a rare tale of survival in China’s coal mines, the world’s deadliest, where an average of 13 workers are killed every day.

The two even managed to crack jokes about their wives remarrying once they were dead after they emerged Friday from the illegal mine — which had no oxygen, ventilation or emergency exits — in Beijing’s Fangshan district.

Israeli, Palestinian

leaders for first time

tackle Jerusalem’s

status, refugees, borders

JERUSALEM — The Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday tackled the core issues that have tormented Mideast peacemakers for decades — Palestinian refugees, final borders and the fate of Jerusalem.

It was the first time Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the issues in depth and represented an important building block for a U.S.-sponsored international peace conference planned for November.

Olmert met several times with Abbas in the past few months, but had been reluctant to take on the most contentious issues, preferring to focus on general outlines. That approach riled Palestinians, who want to take on the core questions of Palestinian statehood.

New wildfires erupt in Greece as rising anger threatens gov’t heading into elections

ATHENS, Greece — More wildfires broke out and others rekindled Tuesday as anger rose over the government’s handling of catastrophic blazes that have laid waste to vast stretches of the Greek countryside and killed at least 64 people.

The fires are dominating political debate ahead of parliamentary elections set for Sept. 16. Criticism that the government failed to respond quickly enough — and its suggestions that the fires resulted from an organized attack — could hurt Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.

Foreign firefighters and aircraft joined in battling the fires that first broke out Thursday and burned nearly 500,000 acres in the first three days, leaving behind a landscape of blackened tree trunks, gutted houses and dead livestock.

Briefly ...

Turkish foreign minister wins presidency, in victory for Islamic-rooted government: A devout Muslim won Turkey’s presidency Tuesday after months of confrontation with the secular establishment, promising to be impartial and praising the idea that Islam and the state should be separate.

Still, in a sign that tension could lie ahead, top generals did not attend the swearing-in ceremony in parliament of Abdullah Gul, their new president and commander in chief.

Local media interpreted their absence as a protest against the 56-year-old Gul, the former foreign minister in Turkey’s Islamic-oriented government.