PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Schools are beginning to open across Haiti's capital for the first time since a devastating earthquake flattened buildings Jan. 12, crippling the education system.

It's a major step toward normalcy, but only a few hundred schools are expected to open this week. UNICEF education official Mohamed Fall said Monday the goal was to have 700,000 children back in school by the middle of next month.

The quake damaged or destroyed 4,000 schools. Nobody wants to put children back in concrete structures, and many schools are waiting for tents.

Educators said they would focus on providing emotional support for traumatized children before picking up the regular curriculum. - AP

Poor in Mongolia protest for aid

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - More than 5,000 protesters surged through the center of Mongolia's capital Monday to demand that parliament be dissolved and promised aid be handed out.

The protesters, from rural areas and the slums of Ulan Bator, demanded that the coalition government fulfill promises from the 2008 elections to better distribute gold- and copper-mining wealth.

The two ruling parties had promised to share more of the country's natural wealth with the public through cash grants or a fund similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays dividends to state residents from oil revenues.

Uyanga Gantomor, a protest organizer, said 40 percent of Mongolia's 2.7 million people lived in poverty nearly two decades after the country shook off communism. - AP

Jordanian town spooked by caper

AMMAN, Jordan - A Jordanian newspaper's April Fool's Day report chronicling an alleged late-night visit by 10-foot-tall aliens in flying saucers sparked public panic and almost led to a town's evacuation, officials said Monday.

Al Ghad published a front-page article April 1 saying the UFOs lit up Jafr, 185 miles from the capital, Amman, interrupted communications, and sent fearful residents streaming into the streets.

"Students didn't go to school, their parents were frightened, and I almost evacuated the town's 13,000 residents," Mayor Mohammed Mleihan said.

Mleihan said he may sue the daily but added that it had apologized. Al Ghad's managing editor, Moussa Barhoumeh, said the paper had "meant to entertain, not scare people." The caper was reminiscent of Orson Welles' 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast about a Martian invasion. - AP

Elsewhere:

Salvage crews rushed Monday to contain an oil spill from a coal-carrying Chinese ship grounded on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, sending two tugboats to stabilize the vessel so that it would not break apart and further damage the fragile coral beneath.