¤ Government supporters in Ivory Coast harassed UN peacekeepers with renewed protests as the Security Council studied possible sanctions to add teeth to a peace plan battered by anti-UN riots.

The protesters, mainly young supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo who are demanding the withdrawal of UN and French troops from the war-divided nation, ignored a direct appeal from the President to end several days of violence.

¤ Iraqi insurgents killed at least 22 people in two simultaneous bomb blasts in central Baghdad, challenging a security clampdown on the capital ahead of the release of the results of last month's elections.

International monitors, asked to review complaints from minority Sunni Arabs about election fraud, delivered a report concluding that the vote was broadly fair but adding that a new government should be inclusive of all Iraq's communities.

¤ A US oil worker being held hostage by Nigerian militants could be released on medical grounds if his employer, US-based oil services firm Tidex, agrees to send their managing director to take his place, the kidnappers said.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail to Reuters that nobody in the Nigerian government had contacted them and that they would negotiate only through two ethnic Ijaw leaders whose release from jail they have demanded.

¤ Ukraine's parliament demanded the government negotiate a new accord with Russia on gas supplies to replace an agreement providing for steep price increases and sacked top officials linked to that deal.