World Highlights
¤ North Korea may be preparing for another missile test, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, but a government official in Seoul discounted the report. Yonhap also reported China is likely to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to visit this...
¤ North Korea may be preparing for another missile test, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, but a government official in Seoul discounted the report. Yonhap also reported China is likely to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to visit this week in an effort to restore their relationship strained after North Korea's missile tests in July.
¤ Nasa restarted its countdown clocks yesterday at the Kennedy Space Centre for the launch this week of the US space shuttle Atlantis after a week's postponement due to a lightning strike and a storm. Liftoff of the shuttle and its six-member crew is targeted for 12:29 p.m. EDT (1629 GMT) on Wednesday. The flight will be Nasa's first mission to restart construction of the International Space Station since the 2003 Columbia disaster. Liftoff was postponed from last week due to Tropical Storm Ernesto and a lightning strike on the shuttle's seaside launch pad in Florida.
¤ Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Iranians the Holocaust was "an undeniable historical fact" after meeting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who caused outrage in the West when he said it was a "myth". Mr Annan also condemned an exhibition of Holocaust cartoons in Tehran that was staged by an Iranian newspaper in retaliation for the September publication of caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other European newspapers.
¤ The armed forces of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia shot down a Georgian military helicopter, Russia's Interfax news agency reported, quoting rebel authorities and peacekeepers in the conflict zone. "The helicopter was shot down by South Ossetia's air defences," Interfax quoted an unnamed South Ossetian armed forces official as saying. The wreckage was believed to be in a mountainous area covered with forests, he said.
¤ Nicolas Sarkozy, conservative frontrunner in France's 2007 presidential election, sought to heal a rift with sceptical young voters alienated by his tough rhetoric during urban riots last year. In a major speech targeting voters seduced by his likely Socialist challenger Segolene Royal, the Interior minister also set out his Green credentials for the first time.