World highlights

• Police in Baghdad found 56 bodies and a severed head over the past 24 hours in various parts of the capital, the highest daily figure since the end of Ramadan. While not unprecedented, the number represents a sharp rise since last week when US forces were out in force throughout the city hunting for a missing US soldier.

• Georgia believes gas from Iran and a BP-led project in Azerbaijan could fully replace Russian fuel after Moscow threatened to double prices amid a political row with Tbilisi, a minister said yesterday. Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom threatened on Thursday to more than double gas prices for Georgia from 2007 in a rise Tbilisi branded as political.

• Iran test fired three new improved missiles yesterday bringing the whole Gulf region within the range of the Islamic Republic's weaponry, state radio said. Iran's military manoeuvres come at a time of heightened tension between Iran and Western powers which are trying to get agreement for UN sanctions to force Iran to cut back nuclear work they fear could produce an atomic bomb.

• The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, will make his first official visit to Pope Benedict on November 23 at the Vatican. The timing is significant because this year marks the 40th anniversary of the historic meeting between his predecessor, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, and Pope Paul VI in 1966. That was the first formal meeting between the heads of the two churches since England's King Henry VIII broke with Rome in the 16th century.

• Three years after he gave himself up to American soldiers without firing a shot, Saddam Hussein may be condemned to hang tomorrow if an Iraqi court finds him guilty of crimes against humanity.

• Attacks in West Darfur have killed at least 63 people, half of them children, as rebels yesterday accused Khartoum of remobilising Arab militia after suffering two military defeats on the Sudan-Chad border.

• Opponents of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev kept pressure on him to resign with fresh protests and a march on state television yesterday and officials accused them of plotting to seize control of state offices. A crowd of about 500 people marched through midday traffic to the state television headquarters.