World Highlights

¤ Democrats asked the White House for details of President George W. Bush's private conversations in 2003 with top political adviser Karl Rove after conflicting reports about whether Mr Bush was aware of any role by Mr Rove in the outing of a covert CIA operative. Mr Rove and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, are at the centre of federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, challenged the administration's pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

¤ A US citizen charged with plotting to kill President George W. Bush said Saudi officials chained him to the floor, blindfolded him and whipped him to make him talk. In his first comments since returning to the United States earlier this year to face a nine-count indictment, Ahmed Abu Ali said he was beaten and whipped shortly after being detained in Medina, Saudi Arabia, in June 2003.

¤ US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to reassure critical lawmakers that the Bush administration had a strategy in Iraq that would "assure victory." In her first testimony on Iraq to the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, Ms Rice said the United States would use tactics similar to those deployed in Afghanistan, where US civilian and military teams worked side by side.

¤ Controversy over the choice of Harriet Miers - the White House counsel and President George W. Bush's former personal lawyer - for the Supreme Court has stirred concerns on Wall Street that loyalty may trump expertise in the pick of a new Federal Reserve chief. With Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan due to step down at the end of January, cartoonist Tom Toles captured the angst by showing a cleaning lady bursting through the Fed's door: "Now who's this Alan Greenspan fellow who I'm replacing?"

¤ Chile's Supreme Court stripped former dictator Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution so he can face charges of tax fraud involving an estimated $27 million. The decision was confirmed by several court officials and opens the way for the retired general to be indicted for tax crimes.

¤ US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his Chinese counterpart agreed to step up military exchanges in what American officials said was a sign of a cautious opening by China's secretive military. Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan disputed US assertions that China vastly understates its military spending, and the Chinese general took pains to try to explain Beijing's defence accounting, a US defence official said.