World Highlights

¤ European allies of the United States said they were satisfied with new assurances by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that US treatment of detainees was within international law.

¤ Egypt's opposition Islamists increased their seats in Parliament nearly sixfold after an election marred by violence, but President Hosni Mubarak's party retained a big majority, official results showed.

¤ Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's bid to boost his flagging administration foundered as two senior politicians rejected Cabinet posts, saying he had ignored the lessons of a stinging referendum defeat.

¤ Israel killed two militants in a Gaza air strike in an escalating military response to a suicide bombing, and a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier to death at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.

¤ A woman farmer from China's northeastern Liaoning province has been diagnosed with bird flu, the fifth person in the country known to have been infected with the deadly virus.

¤ Eight Muslim militants were killed in a clash between Syrian security forces and an Islamist group in a farm in central Syria yesterday, the state news agency SANA reported.

¤ The two federal air marshals involved in the deadly shooting of a threatening air passenger in Miami have been put on administrative leave pending investigation of the incident, officials said.

¤ Environment ministers at UN climate talks have agreed rules for policing the Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming, skirting objections by Saudi Arabia, delegates said.

¤ The International Monetary Fund yesterday approved a $4.8 billion package to cancel the debts of 20 of the world's poorest countries early next year under a plan launched in June by the Group of Eight major industrialised nations.

¤ Gas explosion at Chinese coal pit killed at least 74 miners, the latest in a grimly predictable series of statistics to emerge from world's deadliest mining industry.