• Russia will delay starting up Iran's first nuclear power plant because Tehran is behind with payments as a UN deadline neared for Iran to curb disputed nuclear activity. In Tehran, a senior Iranian official denied any payment hold up, saying Iran had kept to contract terms with Moscow over the Russian-built plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast. Word of the setback for the project came as Iran hurriedly arranged talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency just ahead of an IAEA report that could expose Tehran to broader sanctions over its nuclear programme.

• A senior British officer involved in the killing of a Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber on a London underground train was promoted to a top policing job, looking after the royal family's safety. Cressida Dick was in charge of the operation that led to Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, being shot seven times in the head on an underground train at Stockwell station in south London inJuly 2005. His family said they are "disgusted" by Ms Dick's promotion.

• Israeli-Palestinian talks hosted by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended with a vague promise to meet again and little sign of progress on reviving long-stalled peace moves. The meeting, attended by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, focused partly on a Palestinian unity deal that has calmed factional fighting but cast a new cloud over prospects for peace talks with Israel.

• Colombia's foreign minister resigned after her senator brother was arrested on suspicion he financed illegal paramilitary groups in a scandal damaging US ally President Alvaro Uribe. Maria Consuelo Araujo stepped down three weeks before US President George W. Bush arrives in Colombia in a show of support for Mr Uribe, who has received millions in US aid to combat drug traffickers and leftist guerrillas.

• Gunmen kidnapped two Croatian and one Montenegrin oil worker from a bar in Nigeria's oil city Port Harcourt. The abduction in the city's Iwofe district was the latest in a series of attacks against foreign workers in the world's eighth largest oil exporter, which has prompted thousands of expatriates to leave and cut output by a fifth.

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