World Highlights

O Gunmen stormed through a small town near Baghdad, killing at least 19 people, in what police said yesterday was a sectarian attack by Sunni on Shi'ite Muslims of the kind that has pushed Iraq towards civil war.

O Five Canadian soldiers were wounded yesterday, one seriously, when a suspected suicide car bomber attacked their armoured vehicle in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, Canada's military said. Separately, Taliban gunmen killed the chief government official in neighbouring Helmand province after police killed eight guerillas in a two-hour battle, local officials said.

O Italy yesterday sought to play down a warning by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi about possible reprisals against its former colonial master, but said the remarks did not help heal old wounds. Two weeks after deadly riots outside the Italian consulate in Libya's city of Benghazi, Gaddafi said on Thursday future attacks could not be ruled out if Italy refused to compensate Libyans for more than 30 years of colonial rule.

O An American UN worker flew home to Kenya yesterday after being released by Somali gunmen who kidnapped him apparently over a money dispute. Robert McCarthy, 47, who works for the UN children's agency Unicef, was released on Thursday to UN security officers and members of Somalia's interim government.

O Three Israelis set off firecrackers inside an important Roman Catholic church in the Arab town of Nazareth yesterday, sparking panic among worshippers and a mass brawl outside. One police car was torched as protesters tried to surge past police into the Church of the Annunciation, where the three - a man and two women - were holed up. Police later removed them and took them away for questioning.

O President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ended a week-long state of emergency in the Philippines yesterday, as widely expected, after her security chiefs said the threat from coup plotters had receded.

O Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said yesterday he expects to deliver top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to the Hague tribunal by April and pre-empt a freeze of Serbia's bid to join the European Union.