¤ Shi'ite militias clashed with Iraqi and US forces in Baghdad yesterday and 10 worshippers died in a bomb blast outside a Sunni mosque in the village where a US air strike killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this month. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki slapped a sudden curfew on the capital after the clashes broke out there but lifted the ban on vehicles and people hours later. In Iraq's second city of Basra, a car bomb killed five people at a petrol station, hospital sources said.
¤ A bomb exploded near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank yesterday, causing no casualties, the Israeli army and police said. A military spokesman said the army suspected that Palestinians had planted the explosive that went off by a well at the Neve Daniel settlement outside Bethlehem. Soldiers launched searches for suspects.
¤ US-led forces have killed more than 30 Taliban fighters in clashes during a major operation against rebels in volatile southern Afghanistan, the US military said yesterday.
¤ UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, taking aim at the US-led war on terrorism, reminded all states yesterday of their duty to ban torture and give all security detainees a fair trial. In a speech to the new United Nations Human Rights Council, Ms Arbour also voiced concern at the alleged existence of secret detention centres, saying they facilitate abusive treatment.
¤ Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz sacked his Finance Minister yesterday following allegations that she failed to reveal her ties with communist-era secret police. Zyta Gilowska's dismissal knocked the Polish zloty currency and bonds and is a severe blow to the ruling conservatives who won last year's elections under the slogans of moral renewal and severing of any remaining links with the communist past.
¤ Four men appeared in a British court yesterday charged in connection with a heated protest in London against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad which sparked uproar in the Islamic world earlier this year. The four, aged between 22 and 30, are accused of a range of offences including incitement to racial hatred and soliciting the murder of American and Danish nationals.
¤ Three Czech centre and right parties said yesterday they have reached a deal to form a coalition government, but still lack the one vote needed to win parliamentary support. Mirek Topolanek, whose rightist opposition Civic Democrats won the most votes in the June 2-3 election, told reporters his party will get 10 Cabinet posts, including the premiership, while the centrist Christian Democrats and Greens get three each.