World Highlights

¤ German conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) held on to power in three state elections yesterday, preserving a regional balance crucial for the stability of Chancellor Angela Merkel's right-left coalition in Berlin. With the votes out of the way, however, pressure is expected to build on Ms Merkel to refocus on her domestic agenda and deliver promised reforms of the healthcare system and labour market.

¤ Israel took its first steps towards forming a new government widely expected to be led by interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who wants to set the country's final borders with or without Palestinian agreement. President Moshe Katsav, who will choose a party leader to put together a governing coalition, first met members of Mr Olmert's centrist Kadima party, which won the most parliamentary seats in last Tuesday's election.

¤ Moving Africa's most notorious war crimes suspect, Charles Taylor, from Sierra Leone to stand trial in The Hague is likely to take several weeks at least, court officials and diplomats say. The former Liberian President is due to appear in Sierra Leone's UN-backed Special Court today, when he is expected to plead not guilty to 11 indictments for atrocities committed during the former British colony's 1991-2002 civil war.

¤ Iran blasted the UN Security Council for trying to pressure it into halting its uranium enrichment work but pledged to keep cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watchdog. Speaking on CNN's Late Edition, Aliasghar Soltaniyeh, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, said his country would not withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

¤ Iran has test-fired a sonar-evading underwater missile that can outpace any enemy warship, a senior naval commander told state television during a week of war games in the Gulf. Western nations have been watching developments in Iran's missile capabilities with concern amid a standoff over the Iranian nuclear programme, which the West says is aimed at building atomic bombs. Iran says the programme is only civilian.

¤ Jill Carroll, the American journalist held captive in Iraq for 82 days, returned home to the United States for a reunion with family whose emotional appeals rallied a global campaign for her freedom. Ms Carroll, who described her captivity as a horrific ordeal in a cave-like room sealed off from the world, flew into Boston aboard a packed commercial jet from Germany. She was whisked from the airport out of sight of waiting journalists to a limousine.