World highlights

¤ The White House said North Korea fired two short-range missiles yesterday in a test that US officials said proved the country's nuclear programme posed a threat to the region. The missiles were launched amid a stalemate in talks over the North Korean nuclear programme and at a time when the world's attention has been focused on Iran's atomic aspirations.

¤ Shouting "Down, Down USA", thousands of Sudanese protested in Khartoum yesterday against any deployment of UN troops in the western Darfur region. African Union foreign ministers are due to decide tomorrow whether to ask the UN to take control of their 7,000-strong mission monitoring a shaky ceasefire in Darfur.

¤ India's ancient holy city of Varanasi shut down yesterday in a protest against bomb blasts in a Hindu temple and a railway station which killed 15 people, but there was no sectarian backlash. Armed police mounted a strict vigil during the shutdown, called by Hindu groups after Varanasi, one of the holiest pilgrimage centres for India's majority Hindus, was hit by two bomb blasts within minutes around dusk on Tuesday.

¤ Seventeen people, including executives from the largest Philippine media group, face criminal charges for failing to prevent a deadly stampede to enter a TV game show last month, a law enforcement agency said yesterday. Seventy-four people were killed and nearly 600 injured when a crowd surged towards a Manila stadium to try to get into the Wowowee show.

¤ At least 21 people were killed and more than 20 others injured when a church roof collapsed during torrential rains in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, yesterday, police said. Police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi said 21 bodies had so far been recovered from the wreckage of the City of the Lord born-again church in the northern suburb of Kalerwe.

¤ Nigerian militants whose campaign of sabotage and kidnapping has cut oil supplies from the world's eighth largest exporter said yesterday they had appointed a mediator to seek a resolution to the three-month-old crisis. The appointment of ethnic Ijaw activist Oronto Douglas marked a major shift in rhetoric of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which is holding three foreign oil workers hostage and had promised to stage more debilitating attacks on Nigerian oil facilities.

¤ President George W. Bush is sticking to his threat to veto any legislation blocking a Dubai company from managing US ports, a spokesman said, as congressional Republicans predicted just such a Bill would easily clear a House committee yesterday. "The President's position has not changed," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters travelling with Mr Bush to the Gulf Coast region hit by Hurricane Katrina. But Mr Bush's fellow Republicans in the House showed no sign of walking away from a confrontation.