• Iran will attend a conference of key powers including the US this week that will focus on stabilising Iraq, a meeting Baghdad said might be a turning point for regional cooperation in easing the violence. Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said yesterday there was a "high possibility" arch foes Tehran and Washington would hold bilateral talks at the May 3-4 conference in Egypt, although not necessarily at the ministerial level.

• Cuban President Fidel Castro is back "in charge" after undergoing intestinal surgery in July, his friend and protege Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said. An intestinal ailment has kept the communist leader out of the public eye for the past nine months, sparking speculation about whether he will return to power, which he ceded temporarily to his brother Raul on July 31.

• Thousands of Afghans, some shouting "Death to America" and carrying shrouded bodies, protested in the east after up to six people were killed during a raid by US-led coalition forces. They felled trees to block a road and vowed not to bury the bloodstained bodies until those responsible were punished and villagers detained after the incident were freed.

• The death toll from a suicide bombing in Pakistan rose to 28 as investigators attempted to identify the bomber who tried to kill the interior minister. The lone suicide bomber blew himself up on Saturday just three metres from Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao at the end of a public gathering in Charsadda, in North West of Frontier Province.

• French presidential candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal proposed concessions to lure key centrist voters as they entered the last week of campaigning. Addressing 20,000 supporters in a packed Paris sports arena, right-wing candidate Mr Sarkozy, who is ahead of Mrs Royal in opinion polls, said he wanted to bring French voters together.

• Nigeria's ruling party won more legislators' seats and consolidated its grip on power in several states after rescheduled polls marred by very low turnout and electoral fraud, early results showed. The electoral authority re-staged polls for hundreds of federal and state legislators' seats on Saturday in places where earlier elections were annulled due to irregularities.

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