World Highlights

¤ The United States explicitly banned its interrogators around the world from treating detainees inhumanely in a policy shift made public under pressure from Europe and the US Congress. President George W. Bush's administration had always said US personnel could not torture prisoners anywhere.

¤ President George W. Bush touted progress in Iraqi cities Najaf and Mosul but complained corruption and militias are weighing down Iraq's new democracy as he tried to counter American unease with his war strategy.

¤ Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah appealed to Muslim leaders to unite and tackle extremists who he said have hijacked their religion. At a meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) - the world's biggest Muslim body - in the holy city of Mecca, Mr Abdullah said the world's one billion Muslims were weak and divided, a description echoed by other leaders.

¤ An Israeli air strike killed a senior militant in the Gaza Strip and wounded 10 other people, three of them children, Palestinian medics said.

¤ UN investigators completed questioning five Syrian officials in Vienna in connection with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri this year, diplomatic sources said.

¤ Germany stood firm in an embarrassing diplomatic spat with Washington, insisting the United States had acknowledged a mistake in the case of a German man it held for months as a terrorist suspect in an Afghan jail.

¤ Syrian security forces have found an explosives factory in the northern city of Aleppo, the state news agency said. It also said that two men from an Islamist "armed terrorist group" who were wounded on Sunday in a clash with security forces had since died.

¤ Scientists have discovered how cancer spreads from a primary site to other places in the body in a finding that could open doors for new ways of treating and preventing advanced disease.