World highlights

¤ Guerrillas killed 10 Iraqi policemen and soldiers in attacks north of Baghdad yesterday, while the capital itself was rocked by five major explosions that left at least eight dead. It was one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since the largely peaceful election on December 15, when rival ethnic and sectarian groups took part in a vote for a new parliament. By nightfall, at least 20 were killed and over 40 injured.

¤ UN and Congolese forces have killed about 80 rebels in a week of joint operations and vowed to sustain the drive to bring peace to the violent east before next year's elections, the UN said yesterday. A UN military spokesman said UN peacekeepers and Congolese government troops were pursuing Ugandan rebel fighters through the jungle after driving them from five camps south of Beni in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu district.

¤ Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet lost a key appeal before the Supreme Court yesterday and must now face charges over the disappearance of leftists during his regime. Pinochet, who ruled Chile for 17 years after leading a 1973 coup, must now face the first of a series of human rights charges against him related to Operation Colombo, in which 119 members of an armed revolutionary group disappeared in the mid 1970s and are presumed dead.

¤ Iran is ready to discuss its nuclear programme with any country, but that does not mean it is asking for permission for access to nuclear technology, Iran's foreign minister said yesterday. Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology was supported by "many countries of the world", Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference during a one-day visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

¤ A Tibetan teenager chosen by China to fill one of Tibetan Buddhism's most sacred posts emerged in China's state-run media yesterday to praise the country's religious policies. The 11th Panchen Lama has led a tightly controlled and largely reclusive life since the Chinese government confirmed him in that role in 1995.