BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen kidnapped 29 people in Baghdad today, while Iraq's latest wave of violence killed 19 people, including four Iraqi soldiers in a suicide bombing.

The interior minister faced calls for his dismissal because of the worsening security crisis in Baghdad and surrounding towns, mostly blamed on sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis.

Gunmen in military fatigues drove to the main shopping area of Karrada in 15 vehicles and split into two groups, one going into a mobile phone shop and the other into the office next door of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce, said police Lt. Thair Mahmoud.

They kidnapped 15 staff and customers from the shop and 11 from the chamber, he said. All were believed to be Iraqis. No other details were available.

In a second kidnapping, gunmen in commando uniforms, blocked a car carrying a millionaire businessman and his two sons, seizing the three in southeastern Baghdad, said police Lt. Bilal Ali Majeed.

MOSCOW — The Natural Resources Ministry said today that an oil pipeline leak in western Russia threatened serious environmental damage, but the pipeline's operator said the spill was far smaller than the ministry claimed and had already been cleaned up.The spill in the Byransk region near the border with Belarus and Ukraine, affected a four-square-mile area and contaminated local water sources, a Natural Resources Ministry statement said."Judging by information reaching the ministry from representatives of environmental organizations ... the consequences of the accident may be an environmental catastrophe in the region," the ministry said.Ministry spokesman Rinat Gizatulin said that the leak happened on Saturday but only became public today.

LONDON — A British court refused to recognize the same-sex marriage of two university professors today, ruling that marriage has long been accepted in Britain as a union between a man and a woman.Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger wed in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003, and had asked London's High Court for legal recognition of the marriage. They argued that their relationship was like that of any other married couple and that by calling it a civil partnership, Britain had violated their human rights.