WASHINGTON -- Five years ago, retired Air Force intelligence officer Kirk von Ackermann became the first of 39 Americans to be kidnapped in Iraq. He's still missing, his wife fearing she'll never see him again.

Besides the personal tragedy, his disappearance and those that have followed have taken on a larger significance. They mark a turning point in terrorist tactics that U.S. intelligence officials say has produced a startling statistic: a 500 percent increase in foreigners taken hostage around the world as militants adopt the methods of the most violent figures in the Iraq insurgency.

Kidnapping as a terrorist tactic has spread rapidly after its spike to 229 in Iraq in 2004 - though the practice has waned somewhat in Iraq since the death in 2006 of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

In Afghanistan, foreigners are more likely than Americans to be taken, and killed. Since 2001, three Americans have been kidnapped, the most recent in January. Two were released and the third is officially unaccounted for but believed dead.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- South Africa's new health minister broke dramatically yesterday from a decade of discredited government policies on AIDS, declaring that the disease was unquestionably caused by HIV and must be treated with conventional medicine.

Health Minister Barbara Hogan's pronouncement marked the official end to 10 years of denial about the link between HIV and AIDS by former President Thabo Mbeki and his health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

She was applauded and praised at the opening ceremony of an international AIDS vaccine conference by international scientists and public health officials who were frequently spurned by former health minister.

South Africa now has the world's highest number of people with HIV, counting some 5.4 million people as infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union told music lovers yesterday to turn down the volume of MP3 players, saying they risk permanent hearing loss from listening too long at maximum levels.

EU scientists reported that between 2.5 million and 10 million Europeans could suffer hearing loss from listening to MP3 players at unsafe volumes -- over 89 decibels -- for more an hour daily for at least five years.

EU spokeswoman Helen Kearns said regulators would look next year at lowering the EU legal limit of 100 decibels for MP3 players.

LONDON -- Britain's House of Lords rejected a controversial plan to extend the amount of time police can hold terror suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days and the government said it would abandon the proposal.

The 309-118 vote came after an impassioned debate yesterday, dealing the government a significant defeat. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said a different version would be put into new legislation even though it wouldn't be automatic -- prosecutors would have to apply to a court each time they wanted a terror suspect held for that long and Parliament would then have to vote on each case if the court agreed to it.

The issue has divided Britons in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks raised fears of terrorism. At the time, there was a two-day limit on detention without charge, which could be increased to seven days with court permission.

PODGORICA, Montenegro -- Police fired tear gas yesterday at thousands of angry pro-Serb Montenegrins who pelted state buildings with rocks and flares to protest their government's recognition of Kosovo's independence. At least 34 were injured.

The protesters chanted "Treason! Treason!" and "Kosovo is Serbia!" to condemn the government's decision last week to recognize Kosovo, the former Serbian province that declared independence in February.

Earlier, around 10,000 protesters gave the country's pro-Western government until Wednesday to withdraw its recognition of Kosovo, or they would try to topple it "by unparliamentary means."