World Highlights

¤ Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said he hoped to form a government within a week after meeting the top US defence and foreign affairs officials and two of Iraq's most powerful clerics. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld flew out, Mr Maliki pledged to fill the key posts of interior and defence ministers with non-sectarian appointees - a key US demand.

¤ Sudan sees a possible trade-off with Darfur rebels to make a proposed peace agreement work, the government delegation at peace talks said as negotiations intensified ahead of Sunday's deadline. African Union (AU) mediators presented an 85-page draft peace settlement for Darfur late on Tuesday and the warring parties are under intense pressure to break months of deadlock and strike a deal by Sunday, as demanded by the AU.

¤ Bulldozers rumbled into a giant pit to begin building a new skyscraper to replace the World Trade Center in an act New York's governor said symbolized the city's comeback from the September 11 attacks. Work on the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan began a day after developer Larry Silverstein and the landowner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, resolved long-running acrimonious disputes over money, security and design.

¤ Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signed up the centre-left Labour Party to a coalition deal, a major step towards forming a government and pursuing his plans for the West Bank's future. Mr Olmert's centrist Kadima won the most votes in Israel's March 28 general election but needs the support of Labour and other smaller parties for a parliamentary majority.

¤ The Hamas-led Palestinian government is weighing softening its stance toward Israel to ease isolation but not without concessions from the Jewish state and the international community, Hamas officials said. They said ideas such as a 2002 Arab peace initiative, UN resolutions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Palestine Liberation Organisation's national agenda - all of which include recognition of Israel - were on the table.

¤ Pro-immigration activists say a nationwide boycott and marches planned for Monday will flood America's streets with millions of Latinos to demand amnesty for illegal immigrants and shake the ground under Congress as it tackles reform. Such a massive turnout could make for the largest protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s, though not all Latinos, or their leaders, were comfortable with such militancy, fearing a backlash in Middle America.