World highlights

• US President George W. Bush, facing election-year criticism that the Iraq war is a distraction from efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, insisted allied forces were making headway against a resurgent Taliban. In a speech to a friendly military audience, Mr Bush said an increase in militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan was a result of the pressure Islamic extremists are under from Afghan, US and Nato forces.

• Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said there was no "reason or logic" to suspending Iran's nuclear work and talks were the only way to resolve a standoff with the West, according to state television. Mottaki also said Iran would not use oil as a weapon, a threat officials have sometimes suggested the world's fourth largest oil exporter could resort to if the row escalated.

• President George W. Bush's former chief of staff tried twice to convince the US leader to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld but failed, The Washington Post reported, citing a new book by investigative reporter Bob Woodward. Mr Woodward wrote that White House chief of staff Andrew Card urged Mr Bush to replace Mr Rumsfeld with former Secretary of State James Baker following the 2004 election, the Post reported on its website.

• A top Chinese nuclear envoy said he supported a plan by Seoul and Washington to bring North Korea back to stalled talks on ending its nuclear weapons programmes. Wu Dawei, China's vice foreign minister and chief diplomat in charge of negotiations with North Korea, arrived in Seoul earlier yesterday and met South Korea's foreign minister and its chief envoy to the six-country nuclear talks.

• A strong earthquake hit Venezuela and Trinidad, knocking out power across much of the Caribbean island and sending thousands of people in Venezuela into the streets. Callers to local radio said there had been structural damage to some buildings in Trinidad, which was the epicenter of the 6.1 magnitude quake.

• Taking GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Lamictal epilepsy drug during the first three months of pregnancy may increase the chances of having a baby with a cleft lip or palate, US regulators warned. "More research is needed to be sure about this possibly increased chance of cleft lip or cleft palate in babies born to mothers who take Lamictal," the Food and Drug Administration said in an alert posted on its website at http://www.fda.gov/cder/ drug/infopage/ lamotrigine/default.htm