World highlights

• Seven Britons linked to a plot to blow up US financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange, and stage a series of attacks in Britain were jailed for a total of 136 years by a London court. Prosecutors said the men were part of a group headed by al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot and described as "one of the most dangerous and ambitious terrorist cells ever to operate in this country".

• North Korea lashed the US for conducting an arms race and, far from announcing plans to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, warned that it would bolster its deterrent for self-defence. A banking dispute holding up implementation of a disarmament deal struck in February appeared to be almost resolved after the territory of Macau announced that some $20 million of frozen North Korean funds had finally been released.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will step down next year, may have a surprise choice for his preferred successor, state news agency RIA Novosti said, quoting a senior Kremlin aide. Mr Putin is popular in Russia after seven years of strong economic growth. His departure has fuelled concerns at home and abroad about potential hazards to Russia's political stability.

• The International Space Station's main computers remained shut down following a critical systems crash, while astronauts prepared to fix insulation damage on the US space shuttle Atlantis. It was a long night for space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, who stayed awake to help Russian ground controllers search for the cause of the computer glitch, which on Wednesday wiped out all three redundant systems in the Russian segments of the orbital research outpost.

• Six Lebanese soldiers were killed by an explosion in a building booby trapped by Islamist militants at a Palestinian camp in north Lebanon, security sources said. Four more soldiers were wounded by the blast which destroyed the building at the Nahr al-Bared camp, where the army has been fighting the al Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam group for nearly four weeks.