• The United States said Macau authorities had unblocked funds in frozen North Korean accounts and urged Pyongyang to work toward shutting down a nuclear reactor by a weekend deadline. The reclusive state has insisted it will only close the reactor, which supplies it with weapons-grade plutonium, once $25 million (Lm8 million) in funds linked to North Korean interests and frozen since 2005 in Macau's Banco Delta Asia are freed.
• Russia cast doubt on Iran's announcement that it is now making nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, a move that would take the Islamic Republic closer to making an atomic bomb. Two UN inspectors, who could provide the first independent assessment of any Iranian progress, arrived to inspect the Natanz uranium enrichment site where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran had expanded its atomic work.
• Fighting global warming will be inexpensive but governments have little time left to avert big, damaging temperature rises, a draft United Nations report shows. The draft, due for release in Bangkok on May 4, indicates warming is on track to exceed a two Celsius rise over pre-industrial times, regarded by the European Union as a threshold for "dangerous" change to nature.
• The vast majority of voters expect Nicolas Sarkozy will be France's next president, according to a poll, which showed his Socialist rival Segolene Royal struggling to make an impact in the campaign. The monthly Ifop survey said 67 per cent of people thought the conservative Sarkozy, who has put security and employment at the heart of his manifesto, would win the election against 16 per cent who saw a victory for Ms Royal.
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would hold talks next week with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The meeting would be the first between the two leaders since they agreed, during a visit to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month, to hold talks once every two weeks. The Bush administration has been given a green light by Congress to spend about $60 million (Lm19 million) to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard and for other security expenses, a senior State Department official said.