World highlights

• US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani to discuss control of oil resources in the autonomous region of Kurdistan.Ms Rice, visiting Iraq at the end of a Middle East tour, flew to northern Kurdish region after talks in Baghdad where she pressed Iraqi politicians to unite and rein in sectarian violence that threatens to tear the country apart.

• Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged President Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks on forming a national unity coalition after Mr Abbas threatened to dissolve the Hamas-led government. Mr Haniyeh is embroiled in an increasingly bitter power struggle with Abbas, fuelled by their failure to agree a unity coalition that Palestinians hope will lift Western sanctions.

• Some 80,000 opposition supporters demonstrated outside Hungary's parliament to demand Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany quit, just hours after he won a vote of confidence from lawmakers. Mr Gyurcsany, who secured the votes of 207 MPs with 165 against, had told parliament he would not bow to opposition "blackmail" and vowed to stick to his tough economic programme.

• Sudan has backed away from a warning to dozens of countries not to pledge troops to a UN force for Darfur, the United States said. In an unsigned letter to dozens of countries earlier this week, Sudan warned that any nation pledging UN troops for its vast Darfur region was committing a "hostile act" that was a "prelude to an invasion."