• Iran said it expected the EU to float new ideas at talks to try to end a standoff over Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment that the West fears could be used for nuclear weapons. But hopes for a breakthrough between Iran and the EU were dampened in the run-up by a new Iranian vow not to stop enrichment .

• A Spanish hospital ship is taking 91 African migrants, some seriously ill, to Senegal after they stormed a Spanish fishing boat off Mauritania to escape their own stricken craft. Diplomats said Senegal's government had agreed in principle to allow the migrants on the hospital ship Esperanza del Mar to disembark in the West African country's port capital, where they should arrive early today.

• Ethiopian troops searched for seven Chinese and Ethiopian workers kidnapped in a rebel attack on an oilfield that killed 74 people in a remote and barren southeastern region. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), ethnic Somalis fighting for independence since 1984, claimed responsibility for the raid on the Chinese-run field that was one of the worst attacks yet on Beijing's growing interests in Africa.

• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opted for limited military action in Gaza after Hamas's armed wing fired rockets into Israel and declared a ceasefire in the territory dead, political sources said.

• French centrist Francois Bayrou rejected overtures from presidential rivals Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, lambasting both candidates and refusing to advise supporters who to back in the May 6 election.

• The Somali capital, Mogadishu, is becoming a ghost city as residents flee a government offensive to crush Islamist insurgents and clan militia, the United Nations refugee agency said.