World Highlights

• Ethiopian troops will stay for now in Somalia to help the victorious government pacify the Horn of Africa nation after a two-week war to oust militant Islamists. Tightening the net on defeated Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) fighters fleeing south, neighbouring Kenya said it had closed its long and porous northeastern border and hosted Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf for security talks.

• UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon started his first day on the job by promising immediate attention to the crisis in Darfur but backing off the usual UN opposition to capital punishment. Mr Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister succeeding Kofi Annan of Ghana, was greeted by a UN honour guard and then went to a UN meditation chapel to honour fallen peacekeepers.

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would not retreat from its right to nuclear technology and that a UN resolution imposing sanctions on Iran was invalid. "The Iranian nation is wise and will stick to its nuclear work and is ready to defend it completely," President Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a rally in the southern city of Ahvaz.

• The Taliban will step up attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan this year and kill anyone who negotiates with the government, a top rebel commander said. Taliban fighters staged a surprise comeback last year with the bloodiest violence since US-led troops forced them from power in 2001. More than 4,000 people were killed on both sides in 2006 including nearly 170 foreign troops.