World highlights

• A powerful car bomb killed anti-Syrian Lebanese politician Walid Eido and nine other people in the sixth blast to strike the Beirut area in less than four weeks, security sources said. The bomb, concealed in a parked vehicle, detonated as Eido's car drove by near the seafront in the Lebanese capital. One of his sons was among the dead. At least 11 people were wounded.

• Indonesian police have captured the country's most-wanted militant, Abu Dujana, who heads a military wing of the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah, a police spokesman said. Mr Dujana had been sought in connection with several deadly bomb attacks, including the 2004 Australian embassy blast and a car bombing at the JW Marriot hotel in Jakarta a year earlier.

• Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak won the leadership of Israel's Labour Party, putting him in an influential position to decide the fate of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his coalition government. The left-of-centre Labour Party is the main partner of Olmert's centrist Kadima party in the coalition.

• A pregnant Palestinian mother of eight and her niece told Israeli interrogators they planned a double suicide bombing in Israel after they were detained last month, Israel's Shin Bet security service said yesterday. Citing what it said were confessions the two women made after their arrest trying to leave the Gaza Strip, it said Fatima Zak and Ruda Habib were recruited by militant group Islamic Jihad and applied to enter Israel for medical treatment.

• Thousands of South African workers marched in sympathy with striking civil servants in a show of force that highlighted the divide between the ruling African National Congress and its trade union allies. Downtown Johannesburg came to a standstill as about 15,000 union supporters chanted slogans denouncing President Thabo Mbeki's government, reflecting anger over economic policies that critics say have left South Africa's poor majority behind.

• Iran does not care if the UN passes any more resolutions against it because of its nuclear programme, the president said. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed his country's defiance as world powers consider carrying out their threat to impose new sanctions against Iran over what the West fears is a programme aimed at making an atomic bomb.

• Two former White House officials were subpoenaed as part of the congressional probe of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing last year of federal prosecutors. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont issued subpoenas for testimony and documents from former White House political director Sara Taylor.