World Highlights

• Sri Lanka's foreign ceasefire monitoring mission said it would temporarily withdraw to the capital as aid staff and officials loaded a first ship bound for the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula. • Saudi Arabia said four militants who were...

• Sri Lanka's foreign ceasefire monitoring mission said it would temporarily withdraw to the capital as aid staff and officials loaded a first ship bound for the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula.

• Saudi Arabia said four militants who were holed up in a building in the Red Sea city of Jeddah surrendered after clashes with security forces.

The state-run Al-Ikhbariya television earlier said three of the gunmen had been killed in the clashes.

• Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi named a slimmed down 31-member cabinet in an effort to rejuvenate a government crippled by infighting and threatened by powerful Islamists.

• Barack Obama, the only black US senator, criticised South African leaders for their slow response to AIDS and urged President Thabo Mbeki to take a tougher stand against Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

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