• Israeli forces mounted a rare raid into the West Bank city of Ramallah, killing four Palestinians and detaining four wanted men, hours before an Israeli-Egyptian summit on peacemaking. In the latest fighting between rival Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas policeman and two security officers loyal to Fatah were killed and 25 other people were wounded, witnesses and hospital officials said.
• Egypt is trying to set up another meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Egyptian presidential spokesman said. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was holding talks with Mr Olmert in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday.
• Security forces shot dead 12 criminals and arrested 15 near Tunis after a rare gunbattle in the usually peaceful North African country, a government source said. "The tracking of members of a criminal group ended on Wednesday afternoon with security forces killing 12 members of a criminal group and arrested 15 others," the source said.
• An international anti-bribery watchdog said it had asked Britain to explain why it halted a corruption inquiry into a multi-billion-pound defence deal with Saudi Arabia. An anti-bribery committee at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said it had sent a letter to London before Christmas demanding to know why the inquiry was stopped.
• Somali gunmen attacked an oil tanker truck near Mogadishu, wounding three people and raising fears of a return to the clan violence that largely stopped during six months of Islamist rule.
• Russia and Belarus promised to keep pumping oil to Europe, after Minsk slapped a duty on transit shipments of Russian crude in a trade row that has shaken the ex-Soviet states' strategic alliance.
• Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez appointed a new vice-president, finance minister and justice minister, bringing fresh allies into the Cabinet to strengthen his grip on government.
• White House counsel Harriet Miers, whose controversial nomination for the US Supreme Court was withdrawn, has resigned effective January 31, the White House said.
• Moroccan security forces have dismantled a radical Islamist cell specialised in recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq and arrested 62 people, the government said.