World Highlights

• US-led forces killed seven Afghan policemen, an official said yesterday, and three people were shot dead at a Nato checkpoint, raising concern about mistaken fire incidents. Elsewhere, gunmen on a motorbike fired at schoolgirls on their way home, killing two and wounding six, officials said.

• Iran will make the US "regret" its detention of five Iranians in Iraq since early this year, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday. Iran says the five Iranians detained by US forces in January are diplomats and has demanded their release. US officials say they were involved in supporting militants inside Iraq.

• Heavy fighting raged yesterday between Lebanese troops and al Qaeda-inspired militants at a Palestinian refugee camp, the battleground for Lebanon's bloodiest internal violence since the civil war. Heavy shelling continued especially at the northern entrance of the Nahr al-Bared camp and the militants fired rockets at army posts on a nearby hill.

• Syria is ready to negotiate peace with Israel but refuses conditions on the talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnous said yesterday. "Syria is prepared to resume talks, without any conditions, according to the land-for-peace principle and to achieve stability and security in the region," Mr Arnous said in the first official reaction to an Israeli offer for talks.

• The US accused its Arab allies Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar yesterday of being among the world's worst offenders in failing to prevent people from being sold into the sex trade and servitude. In its annual report on human trafficking, the US State Department added the four to its list of 16 countries subject to possible sanctions.

• Rescuers found 20 more bodies buried under mud in the Bangladesh port city of Chittagong yesterday, officials and witnesses said, taking the total number of flood-related deaths to nearly 130.

• China braced for more torrential rain yesterday in a wild season of floods, house collapses and rockslides across the south and east that have already killed 76 people with 13 missing. Downpours were forecast for today for much of southern China.