World Highlights

¤ Gunmen in police uniforms kidnapped 17 people from a central Baghdad apartment building in broad daylight, Interior Ministry sources said, highlighting lawlessness afflicting the country.

The latest abductions came a day after US President George W. Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister agreed in Washington that more US and Iraqi troops will move into the city to try to curb sectarian violence that has raised fears of all-out civil war.

¤ Twenty-five militants were killed by US-led forces in Afghanistan, officials said, as the US military prepares to hand over security responsibilities in the violent south.

Fifteen Taliban insurgents were killed during heavy bombing in three villages in Musa Qala of southern Helmand province on Tuesday night.

¤ Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hailed Russia for defying a US arms blockade by agreeing to sell fighter aircraft to his country.

Mr Chavez will sign a $1 billion deal to buy at least 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 jets to replace oil-rich Venezuela's US F-16s. Russia has also said it is ready to sell a similar number of military helicopters to Venezuela.

¤ A mystery cargo plane that landed in Somalia's capital Mogadishu yesterday has triggered accusations from the interim government that it was carrying weapons from Eritrea to support rival Islamists.

¤ Power was restored to parts of Liberia's dilapidated capital Monrovia for the first time in 15 years, another step in the country's fragile emergence from more than a decade of civil war.

Looting during the 14-year conflict, which ended in 2003, shattered the West African country's infrastructure. Power cables were torn down and water pipes ripped up for scrap metal by fighters, many of them child soldiers high on drugs.

¤ Sudan has left a "tiny" window open for negotiation on accepting UN troops in its violent Darfur region. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has refused international demands for a UN force in Darfur, saying it would be used as a front for the colonial ambitions of the US and attract attacks by Islamic militants.

¤ An attack on an oil flow station operated by Agip in southern Nigeria has caused a "significant decrease" in output, Agip's parent company said without specifying what had happened to about 40 staff there.

The attackers targeted the Ogbainbiri flow station in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta late on Tuesday when about 40 subcontractors, security and catering staff were on site.

¤ Kenya's scandal-plagued government came under new attack when an opposition leader joined the chief electoral officer in accusing it of illegally using state funds to campaign in by-elections.