World Highlights

¤ President George W. Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan yesterday resigned and senior adviser Karl Rove gave up the policy-development part of his job in a White House shake-up. The moves were part of an effort by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, who started work last weekend, to help Mr Bush rebound from sagging polls and bolster American confidence in his leadership.

¤ Chinese President Hu Jintao toured a Boeing Co. aircraft plant yesterday, addressed several thousand workers at the plant near Seattle, and delivered an important policy speech, before flying to Washington DC for his summit with Mr Bush today. See pages 18, 19

¤ Iraq's Parliament will convene today, officials said, but deadlock over the formation of a national government dragged on as embattled Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari insisted he will not step down. Signalling growing US impatience over the need to form a unity government seen as the best hope to avert civil war, US President George W. Bush warned wrangling Iraqi leaders they must bury their differences soon.

¤ Iraqi prosecutors pressed ahead yesterday with efforts to prove that Saddam Hussein's signature was found on documents directly implicating him in the killings of 148 Shi'ites in the 1980s. The chief judge read out a report by prosecution experts authenticating the ousted President's signature on documents.

¤ French and Italian police yesterday arrested 13 suspected Islamists in a joint operation targeting a group thought close to Algeria's radical Islamist group, the GSPC, judicial and police sources said. Anti-terrorist police detained five people in the southern French port of Marseilles while eight others were arrested in Italy's southern port of Naples, mainly on suspicion of using and making forged documents.

¤ Nepal's royalist government freed the country's two top political prisoners yesterday, a sign that King Gyanendra may want to negotiate with anti-monarchy protesters who have brought the kingdom to a standstill. But in the east, security forces opened fire on protesters in the town of Chandragadi, killing at least two people and wounding dozens.

¤ Backers of Ukraine's President, trying to rebuild the coalition behind the "Orange Revolution", dug in their heels yesterday by denying estranged ally Yulia Tymoshenko a free hand to take back her job as Prime Minister.