World Highlights

• US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she is cautiously optimistic that it may be possible to begin carrying out a September 2005 agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear programs. "The six-party talks have reconvened in Beijing just as we speak and I think we are cautiously optimistic that there may be some movement forward," Ms Rice told a congressional panel.

• US and Iraqi forces detained a deputy health minister, a senior member of the political group of a radical Shi'ite cleric, in the first major sign that a security crackdown in Baghdad was under way. The US military, without naming anyone, said a senior Health Ministry official had been captured on suspicion of infiltrating members of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia into the ministry, and of funnelling millions of dollars to militiamen.

• The US stepped up pressure on Nato allies to send more troops to crush an expected Taliban offensive, saying the next few weeks would be pivotal in battling the insurgency. But despite mounting impatience in Washington, European countries were likely to deflect the calls at a meeting of defence chiefs in Seville amid signs of differences over mission priorities.

• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spurned a call by his defence minister to consider halting excavations near Jerusalem's most sacred Islamic shrine that have angered Muslims, an official said. The dig, outside a compound housing the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, has exposed the depth of Arab suspicions over Israeli activities in Arab East Jerusalem and the simmering tensions between Mr Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz.