World highlights

• Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern won a third successive term bringing the Green Party into government for the first time and cementing his position as one of Ireland's most successful politicians. Mr Ahern said inviting the Greens into government reflected not only his desire for a solid parliamentary majority but also his own anxiety over the environment.

• French President Nicolas Sarkozy said EU leaders might be able to overcome Polish threats of a veto and agree at a bloc summit next week on the drawing up of a new EU treaty. But Austria's Chancellor and a German government adviser cast doubt on Poland's intentions, saying it appeared determined to prevent Germany winning agreement on a charter designed to reform EU institutions.

• Washington should freeze development of its planned missile shield in eastern Europe while it weighs a counter-proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Kremlin spokesman said. US President George W. Bush has signalled that the US is pressing ahead with its missile defence system even as it evaluates Mr Putin's alternative offer for joint use of a radar station that Russia controls in Azerbaijan.

• Some 3,000 mourners chanted anti-Syrian slogans at the funeral of a Lebanese legislator killed in a car bomb attack that deepened Lebanon's political crisis. Walid Eido was the seventh anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated since February 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was killed in a suicide truck bombing.