World Highlights

• An Indonesian hospital was overwhelmed with patients suffering bird flu symptoms while the virus spread further among flocks in Vietnam and flared anew in Thailand. A spurt of human infections with the H5N1 bird flu virus, which re-emerged in Asia in late 2003, has alarmed health officials.

• Leftist Rafael Correa became Ecuador's eighth president in a decade and vowed radical changes at a ceremony that drew presidents from a burgeoning anti-US alliance. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez braved the thin air of the world's second-highest capital to show their solidarity with the US-educated economist.

• Iran said it was pressing ahead with a plan to install 3,000 atomic centrifuges and achieve industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel, which the West fears is part of a programme to make bombs. Tehran, countering diplomatic reports of delays, seemed to be reaffirming a defiant vow, made after the UN Security Council slapped limited sanctions on it last month, to start rigging up 3,000 centrifuges at its fuel-enrichment plant.

• Nepali Maoists took their seats in a newly created interim parliament, in what the country's prime minister called the start of a new Nepal on the path of reconciliation after a decade of civil war. The formal entrance of the Maoists into the political process caps a landmark peace deal that has seen them move from guerrilla fighters to politicians in less than a year.

• Asian leaders signed an energy security pact that seeks to reduce oil dependency and greenhouse gas emissions in some of the most polluted countries on the planet, but offers no concrete targets. Southeast Asian leaders along with the heads of China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand held their second East Asia summit in a more constructive atmosphere than last year as Beijing and Tokyo used the meeting to further mend ties.