World Highlights

• UN chief Kofi Annan led a push for a "hybrid" force of African Union and United Nations peacekeepers to be allowed into Darfur amid reports of new violence in Sudan's war-shattered region. But as the meeting in Ethiopia dragged into the evening, Khartoum again seemed set on rejecting the latest UN plan to end the Darfur bloodshed despite the outgoing secretary-general's personal efforts.

• A week after winning back control of the US Congress, Democrats in the House defied incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi and bypassed a vocal Iraq war critic to elevate her moderate deputy to majority leader. It marked an embarrassing first defeat for Ms Pelosi, a California liberal who had endorsed Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a key player in the anti-war effort that helped Democrats sweep to power in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

• Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and President Mahmoud Abbas plan to meet this month to iron out problems preventing the formation of a Palestinian unity government, a senior Hamas official said. The Islamist group wants guarantees from Mr Abbas, who heads the rival Fatah faction, that the West will recognise the next administration and sanctions will be lifted.

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was aboutto take the "final step" in a nuclear programme which the UN has called on it to curtail and which the West fears may be used to make atomic bombs. Mr Ahmadinejad did not say what the final step was, but he repeated comments he made this week that Iran would celebrate its "right to nuclear technology" by March, the end of the Iranian year, the official IRNA news agency reported.