• France condemned Israel's offensive in Lebanon as "completely disproportionate". The Vatican also deplored the strikes mounted in response to a raid by Hizbollah guerrillas who killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two.

• President George W. Bush, arriving in Russia for a weekend big-power summit, met local pressure groups who say Kremlin backsliding on democracy has meant a clampdown on their activities. Mr Bush will also hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin today.

• An Israeli naval vessel was seriously damaged in an attack off the coast of Lebanon yesterday,the Israeli Haaretz news website reported.

• Britain's princes William and Harry lashed out at an Italian magazine that published taboo photographs of their mother Princess Diana dying in the wreckage of a Paris car crash.

• Gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Iraq, killing 12 soldiers and wounding one, Iraqi army Major General Anwar Hamad Ameen said. The gunmen attacked the soldiers in Rashaad, 40 km south of Kirkuk, with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns at 3.30 p.m. (1130 GMT).

• A three-year-old Indonesian girl who died this month has tested positive for bird flu according to tests by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The child's death takes the number of human bird flu deaths in the country to 41.

• Major powers turned over to the 15-nation UN Security Council details of energy and economic incentives they offered to Iran if it suspends its nuclear ambitions and stops uranium enrichment. The three-page incentive package, which had not previously been published in full, includes a pledge to "actively support" the building of new light water power reactors in Iran.

• At least 12 Sri Lankan soldiers and four Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in a firefight in the island's restive east, truce monitors said, in one of the worst military clashes since a 2002 ceasefire.

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