World Highlights

¤ US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heaped praise on President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, upholding Washington's full support for a leader struggling to hold back resurgent Taliban forces.

The top US diplomat, who flew from Pakistan to meet Karzai in Kabul, pledged unswerving support for the president whose popularity has slumped as he struggles to stem the violence and improve people's lives.

¤ Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday ordered his state security agents to hunt down the killers of four Russian diplomats abducted in Iraq, Interfax news agency quoted the Kremlin as saying.The head of the FSB state security, Nikolai Patrushev, immediately pledged to see Putin's order carried out.The diplomats were seized in Baghdad four weeks ago and an al Qaeda-led group posted video footage on the Internet last Sunday showing the killing of three men it said were Russian hostages. Russia has acknowledged all four were killed.

¤ Israeli warplanes flew over one of President Bashar al-Assad's palaces yesterday to warn Syria against supporting Palestinian militants who abducted an Israeli soldier, the Israeli army said. Israeli media reports said four planes carried out the overflights at low altitude, early in the morning, causing several sonic booms. Israeli media said Assad was at the palace at the time.

¤ Iraq accused al Qaeda militants, including four Saudis, of carrying out the February 22 bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine that triggered a major upsurge in sectarian violence.

National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said Iraqi Haitham al-Badri, the al Qaeda leader in Salahaddin province, masterminded the attack in the town of Samarra north of Baghdad.

¤ Tamil Tiger rebels killed five navy sailors and wounded three others during an attack on two small Sri Lankan navy vessels around 165 kilometres north of the capital Colombo, the military said.

Officials had earlier said there were no navy fatalities in the clash, but said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had prevented them from getting near one badly damaged boat.

¤ Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resorted to a confidence vote to push a bill through parliament for the first time since winning power, exposing his fragile hold over a fractious coalition.

Professor Prodi easily won the vote on a routine administrative bill but serious policy splits in his centre-left coalition mean he is likely to use the tactic again in the coming days, including on a vote on keeping troops in Afghanistan.

¤ The worldwide Anglican Communion looked set for a slow-burning schism after its leader proposed a two-tier membership that would exclude the United States church for consecrating a gay bishop.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of 77 million Anglicans, laid out the plan after the Episcopal Church declined to repent for appointing a homosexual prelate.

¤ Spain has secretly deported around 200 Africans to Senegal in the past two weeks as Europe tries to stem the flow of illegal immigrants to its shores without rekindling a row over repatriation to West Africa, a Senegalese official said.