World highlights

• Fierce battles between militia gunmen and police in the southern city of Amara tested the Iraqi government's ability to rein in sectarian groups and US-led plans to hand over control to Iraqis. Several hundred gunmen attacked three police stations and set fire to them before an appeal for calm from Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr restored order, officials said. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers were brought in to support police in the clashes.

• European leaders agreed to deliver a blunt message to President Vladimir Putin that Russia must give European firms more chance to exploit its huge energy resources or risk an investor exodus. Mr Putin arrived as guest at a potentially fraught EU summit dinner, with bloc president Finland pledging to raise the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the Kremlin's heavy handed treatment of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

• An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale hit northwestern Turkey yesterday, Turkey's earthquake monitoring centre said. The quake hit Balikesir, across the Marmara Sea from Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

• Survivors of genocide, from the Nazi Holocaust to Rwanda, called for EU sanctions to stop the Darfur conflict, saying so far the EU has done almost nothing to stop mass killing in western Sudan. "I didn't survive a Nazi concentration camp to sit back while genocide is repeated," said Holocaust survivor Martin Stern, one of 120 people to sign an open letter to EU states.