In Amsterdam:

Gunman kills Dutch film director

Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, who made a controversial film about Islamic culture, has been stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam, Dutch police say.

Police arrested a man in a nearby park after an exchange of gunfire.

Van Gogh, 47, had received death threats after his film Submission, on violence against women in Islamic societies, was shown on Dutch TV.

The film was made with liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who fled an arranged marriage.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been under police protection since the film was aired. She has also received death threats and has renounced the Islamic faith.

Eyewitnesses quoted by Radio Netherlands said Van Gogh was attacked while cycling by a man dressed in a traditional Moroccan jallaba.

In Finland and Latvia:

Security was tighter around the U.S. embassies in Finland and Latvia on Monday amid a U.S. warning that Americans living and traveling in the Nordic and Baltic nations should be on guard against a possible terrorist strike…The U.S. State Department “urges all U.S. citizens in the Nordic and Baltic countries to be vigilant as to their surroundings, especially in centers of ground-based mass transit, and to report any unusual or suspicious persons, incidents or circumstances to the nearest police authorities,” the Web site of the U.S. Embassy in Finland said.

The warning, posted late Saturday, gave no other details, but came just hours after Latvia’s security service said it received intelligence reports from Norway, Estonia and the United States of a possible terrorist strike in the Baltic nation of 2.3 million people. Latvia’s Interior Ministry said an Islamic extremist group based in the region was behind the threat, but gave no details…

In Jordan:

Jordan’s military court convicted a Jordanian businessman of raising funds to help terror mastermind Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi carry out attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq but acquitted him of conspiring in the actual attacks. Bilal al-Hiyari, 34, was sentenced to six months in jail.

In Afghanistan: U.N. Election Workers Held Hostage

And in Baghdad:

A car bomb exploded outside the Education Ministry in central Baghdad Tuesday, killing at least six people and wounding about eight, the Interior Ministry said.

The blast in the Iraqi capital’s mainly Sunni Muslim Adhamiya district badly damaged the ministry building and destroyed 31 nearby vehicles. Smoke poured from the building as firemen fought a blaze set off by the blast.

The body of an elderly man lay on the ground on fire after the explosion, which scattered body parts across the street.

Education Minister Sami al-Mudhaffar said the bombing, which occurred on U.S. presidential election day, showed attackers would stop at nothing to derail those dedicated to rebuilding Iraq…

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