World Highlights

¤ President Mahmoud Abbas vowed yesterday to call a referendum if the Hamas-led government refuses to back a proposal for a Palestinian state that implicitly recognises Israel.

¤ Foreign ministers from major powers are likely to meet late next week in Europe to complete work on a package of incentives and disincentives aimed at resolving the Iran nuclear crisis, the US State Department said yesterday.

¤ US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were due to discuss Iraq in Washington yesterday, a day after its prime minister said Iraqi forces could take over security by the end of next year.

¤ A sweeping immigration law overhaul that would toughen border security and give millions of illegal immigrants a path to US citizenship headed for Senate passage yesterday as backers prepared for a bruising battle with the House of Representatives.

¤ Australian commandos arrived in chaotic East Timor yesterday as gun battles in the capital, Dili, killed at least three people and forced residents to huddle in their homes.

¤ The former commander of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay urged the use of dogs to the "maximum extent possible" to control detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, but did not order their use in interrogations, a witness said yesterday.

¤ House Speaker Dennis Hastert might sue ABC News for libel and defamation for a news report that said he was "in the mix" in a corruption investigation, according to a letter sent by Mr Hastert's lawyer yesterday.

¤ Sudan has agreed to allow an African Union-UN assessment mission into the country ahead of a possible deployment of UN troops to war-torn Darfur, a UN diplomat said yesterday.

¤ Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed four policemen in a mine ambush yesterday and shot another dead, as Norway's special peace envoy met Sri Lanka's President in a diplomatic push to avert a return to civil war.