World Highlights

¤ The US said Iran's response to a package of incentives offered from world powers fell short of a UN Security Council demand that Tehran abandon enrichment activities.

In the first US response to Iran's reply, spokesmen at the White House and State Department said the US was consulting closely with other members of the Security Council over what the next steps should be.

¤ Syria said it would close its border with Lebanon if the UN stationed troops along it as part of its mission to enforce a UN-backed truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem made the threat in a meeting with Finnish counterpart Erkki Tuomioja in Helsinki.

¤ Secretary-General Kofi Annan plans a major Middle East trip in the coming days including stops in Israel, Lebanon, Iran and Syria to help shore up an uneasy Lebanon ceasefire, the UN announced.

Mr Annan's trip is aimed at implementing the August 11 Security Council resolution 1701, which called for a truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas and a UN force of up to 15,000 troops to help enforce it.

¤ Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki insisted his forces would be ready to take control of most provinces within months, even though the US military has boosted troop levels in Baghdad to shore up his government.

The US Marine Corps announced on Tuesday it was calling up inactive service members to return to duty, in Afghanistan and Iraq, to counter a steady decline in the number of such troops who volunteer.

¤ Cursing Saddam Hussein, a Kurdish woman told the former Iraqi leader's genocide trial, she was horribly burned after aircraft bombed her mountain village with chemical weapons.

"I lost my sight. My children lost their sight ... My house was razed to the ground. May God blind them all," said Adiba Owla Bayez, pointing at the former Iraqi president and his six co-defendants on the third day of the trial.