• Iran has begun making nuclear fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant, a confidential UN atomic watchdog document said, in an apparent heightening of its defiance of the United Nations.

• Iran's army will "cut off the hand" of any attacker and is ready to fulfil its defensive duties, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during an annual military parade.

• A South Korean intelligence official said that increased activity had been spotted at North Korea's nuclear reactor, which local media has said could suggest it is being closed down.

• Arab foreign ministers asked Egypt and Jordan to contact Israelis and try to persuade them to accept an Arab peace plan offering normal relations in return for land and a Palestinian state.

• The United States and Britain, ratcheting up the pressure on Sudan, threatened it with sanctions and other punitive measures unless it agreed to accept a robust UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

• Nigeria is likely to go ahead with Saturday's watershed presidential election, despite an opposition demand that it should be postponed because of rigged state polls, political sources.