World Highlights

¤ Offering Iran security guarantees to stop its nuclear programmes makes no sense, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday as Tehran also dismissed the idea, citing a lack of trust. Ms Rice said European powers have not sought US support for security guarantees to Iran. This is despite reports from some diplomats that Europe may want Washington to make assurances such as a pledge against trying to overthrow the Islamic republic's government, as part of a package to persuade Tehran to abandon suspected nuclear-weapons development.

¤ Israel authorised the release of $11 million in frozen Palestinian taxes yesterday in a bid to ease a humanitarian crisis ahead of Ehud Olmert's first trip to Washington as Prime Minister. While both Israel and the US are working to isolate the Hamas Islamists controlling the Palestinian government, the Jewish state has been under pressure to help avert the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.

¤ Talks about a solution to the problem of political violence in the Basque country could start as early as next month, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said yesterday. "Next month I'll announce to all political parties the start of a process of dialogue with ETA which will end the violence," Mr Zapatero said at a meeting of his ruling Socialist Party in Barakaldo.

¤ Congolese army troops backed by UN peacekeepers killed 32 rebels in heavy weekend fighting for an eastern town against a militia force with child soldiers in its ranks, officials said yesterday.

¤ Kuwait's emir dissolved Parliament yesterday, a week after lawmakers and the government clashed over an election reform law and called for parliamentary elections next month, the official Kuwait News Agency said. A decree by Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah ordered the dissolution of the house a few days after reformist MPs submitted a request to grill Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah over the disputed draft law aimed at curbing voting irregularities.