World Highlights

¤ Iran vowed to pursue its nuclear research even if talks in Moscow produce agreement on a Russian compromise aimed at keeping bomb-grade enriched uranium out of the Islamic Republic's hands.

There was no word on the outcome of closed-door Kremlin talks between Russian and Iranian officials on Moscow's offer to enrich uranium on Iran's behalf for use in power stations.

A Russian source said the two sides would meet again today.

¤ Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began talks with Hamas officials on forming a Hamas-led government which he said should recognise past peace deals with Israel and seek statehood through non-violence.

Hamas, an Islamic group dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state, launched coalition negotiations earlier in the day with other militant factions but was swiftly rebuffed by Islamic Jihad, which vowed to press on its fight with Israel.

¤ Three bombs killed at least 19 people in Iraq, breaking a relative lull in guerilla violence as the US ambassador warned against sectarianism and militias in the new government.

The bloodiest attack took place in the Kadhimiya district of central Baghdad, where a suicide bomber strapped with explosives climbed aboard a bus and blew himself up, killing at least 12 people, Interior Ministry sources said.

¤ Rescue workers pulled five bodies from a Philippine school buried under a mudslide, dashing reports of a miraculous recovery of 50 people three days after their village was obliterated. "We have yet to find any survivors," Captain Burrell Parmer, a spokesman for US Marines taking part in the rescue operation, told the ABS-CBN television channel.