World highlights

• US Vice President Dick Cheney met Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and was expected to press for more progress in meeting political benchmarks aimed at ending sectarian violence.

• Heavily armed gunmen kidnapped four US oil workers from a barge off the Nigerian coast as violence flared after disputed elections in the world's eighth largest oil exporter. It was the tenth attack on Western oil facilities in nine days in the Niger Delta, and comes in the wake of April's general elections which were condemned by observers as fraudulent.

• Somali security forces are seizing and burning Muslim women's veils in Mogadishu to stop Islamist insurgents disguising themselves for attacks. The Western-backed government's crackdown on veils is a highly symbolic turnaround for the Somali capital.

• Crisis-weary Zimbabweans braced for darker days after President Robert Mugabe's government announced 20-hour daily electricity cuts for households across the country. The government has said the cuts will allow supplies to be shifted to irrigate the crucial winter wheat crop amid persistent food shortages.