1.   Competition in long-distance telephone service arrived in this tranquil province capital recently with the buzz and bluster of a political campaign.

2.   Officials in Khost, the province capital, said the strike focused on the wrong gunmen, killing pro-U.S. fighters.

3.   Iranian television showed Interior Minister Ali Mohamed Besharti visiting victims in a hospital in the province capital of Ardabil.

4.   The evaluation commission was scheduled to travel Wednesday from Klagenfurt, the Carinthia province capital, to Poprad, Slovakia.

5.   To reach the Balkh province capital, the Taliban will have to overrun several lines manned by troops loyal to Masood and Shiite Muslims.

6.   A second shotputter, Zhang Liuhong, was also tested at the National Track and Field Championships in the Shanxi province capital of Taiyuan on Wednesday.

7.   There have been a series of explosions in Lahore, the Punjab province capital, this year which have left dozens dead.

8.   Unidentified gunmen Tuesday shot and killed a Shia homeopathic practitioner here in the second sectarian murder in two days in the Punjab province capital, police said.

9.   Rebels advancing on the Haut Zaire province capital of Kisangani are within range of light warplanes based there -- but only if the planes can take off and land.

10.   Residents of the Rwandan border town of Cyangugu Sunday reported heavy artillery battles in eastern Zaire overnight around the airport serving the South Kivu province capital Bukavu.