World Highlights

¤ US Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated to be CIA director, won public support from two independent-minded Republican senators yesterday despite revelations that he oversaw efforts to track the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans.

¤ Backroom rows over key economic jobs in a new Iraqi government broke into the open yesterday when a small Shi'ite party said it pulled out of negotiations altogether and accused the US ambassador of interfering. With 10 days left of the month allowed to him to present a Cabinet to Parliament, Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki is facing major headaches from within his own camp as Shi'ite Islamist rivals battle for control of oil and other ministries.

¤ Four US marines drowned when their tank fell from a bridge into a canal near Falluja, west of Baghdad, the military said yesterday. The deaths of the crew of the M1-A1 Abrams main battle tank near the village of Garma on Thursday were not a result of enemy action, the military said in a statement.

¤ Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels warned international truce monitors not to travel aboard navy ships, as tensions on the island remained high yesterday after the worst clash since a 2002 truce. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) craft struck at naval fast attack boats on Thursday off the island's north coast, sinking one and killing 17 crew and damaging another with a monitor from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) aboard.

¤ Hundreds of terrified residents fled a barrage of rockets and mortars in Mogadishu yesterday as Islamic fighters and warlord militias fought pitched battles for control of the Somali capital. Inhabitants of the battered city said at least 12 more people had died overnight and into yesterday, pushing the death toll from six days of fighting to at least 133.

¤ Eight explosions tore through the Ethiopian capital yesterday, killing four people and injuring at least 43 in the latest of a series of mysterious blasts to strike Addis Ababa this year. Police scrambled throughout the day to keep track of the apparently coordinated attacks across the city, which followed an earlier pattern targeting public areas and transportation.

¤ Britain's new Environment Minister David Miliband said yesterday nuclear power had to remain an option as the country studied how to meet its international obligations to tackle global warming. It was Mr Miliband's first public statement on the contentious issue since his appointment in last week's Cabinet reshuffle.

¤ Federal agents yesterday searched the home and office of the CIA's former third-highest ranking official who is under investigation over his ties with a figure in a congressional bribery scandal. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the CIA's former executive director, faces at least four federal probes over his long-standing friendship with defence contractor Brent Wilkes, an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery case that landed former US Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in jail, officials said.