World Highlights
¤ Car bombs killed at least 62 Iraqis as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepared for a White House visit expected to focus on halting what many see as Iraq's accelerating slide toward all-out sectarian civil war. Two separate blasts killed 42 civilians...
¤ Car bombs killed at least 62 Iraqis as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepared for a White House visit expected to focus on halting what many see as Iraq's accelerating slide toward all-out sectarian civil war. Two separate blasts killed 42 civilians in Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad slum that is a stronghold of the Shi'ite Mehdi Army militia.
¤ Thousands of people fleeing Israel's 12-day bombing in Lebanon poured into Cyprus and Turkey in a flood that showed no sign of slowing. Ships sailed to the Turkish port of Mersin as Ankara stepped in to share the burden with Cyprus, which was expecting more than 8,000 foreigners yesterday alone.
¤ Close to a final deadline, six trading powers met in what could be a last attempt to overcome differences blocking the way to a global free trade deal. The so-called G6 - Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, the EU and the US - must reach agreement on how to boost trade in farm and industrial goods or risk seeing nearly five years of WTO negotiations collapse in failure.
¤ Israel will support the deployment of a temporary international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon to ensure Hizbollah is removed from its border, Defence Minister Amir Peretz said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had initially brushed aside the idea as premature.
¤ Nato-led British and Afghan troops killed 19 Taliban guerrillas, a local official said, as militants vowed more suicide attacks a day after a deadly double strike in the south. Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest phase of violence since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, most attacks occurring in the south where Nato-led forces will take responsibility for security from a US-led coalition in just over a week.
¤ Envoys from France, Germany and Britain joined intensifying diplomacy in Israel aimed at ending fighting between Israeli forces and Hizbollah that has wrecked swathes of Lebanon and left hundreds dead. The ministers held separate talks with Israeli officials before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival in the Middle East later in the day.