In the World

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Obama administration was considering putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

North Korea's recent nuclear test and a series of missile launches have drawn international criticism. Some senators have asked President Obama to consider putting it back on the list.

Clinton told ABC's This Week that North Korea's actions undermine the reasons it was taken off the list.

The Bush administration removed it from the list after it said it would dismantle its nuclear-weapons facilities. Since then, though, it has refused to proceed with that dismantling. - AP

ACAPULCO, Mexico - In a Hollywood-style shoot-out at a onetime playground of cinema's biggest stars, Mexican soldiers battled outlaws holed up in a cliffside mansion for four hours as tourists kept to the safety of their hotels.

Roughly 3,000 shots flew and 50 grenades exploded during the battle late Saturday that left 15 outlaws and one soldier dead. Six people were wounded, including three bystanders.

More than a dozen tourists were evacuated from the hotel strip, which seems frozen in the 1950s. Elizabeth Taylor held one of her many weddings there and John Wayne and Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller threw lavish parties at Los Flamingos Hotel less than 100 yards from where the gunfire broke out.

The battle erupted after a tip that armed men were gathered at a gated house. Military officials said they were investigating who the gunmen were. Though no drugs were found, the weapons stash, large house, and late-model cars found looked like the trappings of a drug cartel. - AP

TEHRAN, Iran - The main reformist challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the incumbent yesterday of making false accusations of corruption against his supporters to sabotage his campaign with just days to go before Friday's election.

Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi wrote to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing Ahmadinejad and his supporters of taking unethical steps against his campaign. "Is the presidency worth lying to people?" Mousavi asked later during a live TV debate with the other reformist challenger, Mahdi Karroubi.

Unusually, the presidential campaign has descended into bitter personal attacks between candidates. Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, has urged the contenders to exercise restraint.

Mousavi, who was prime minister in the 1980s, is among those who seek better ties with the West and an easing of social and political restrictions at home. - AP

Paris' mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, conferred a certificate of honorary citizenship on the Dalai Lama in a move that could strain France's relations with China, which paints the Tibetan spiritual leader as bent on the region's independence from China.