• The head of an al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said the country had become a "university of terrorism", producing highly qualified warriors, since the 2003 US-led invasion. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the withdrawal of ministers loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had not weakened his government, and he would name technocrats to replace them soon.
• Western powers pressed Sudan to allow a big UN peacekeeping force into violence-torn Darfur, but the United Nations was struggling to put together even a smaller unit that Khartoum has agreed to.
• Egyptian authorities have charged a nuclear engineer at the state's Atomic Energy Agency with spying for Israel, along with two fugitive foreigners, an Irishman and a Japanese, a government statement said.
• France's presidential election looked increasingly like a two-horse race, with frontrunners rightist Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal battling for supremacy while other candidates lost ground. An opinion poll published in le Parisien daily suggested Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal would cruise past their rivals in the April 22 first round vote and then tie in a run-off ballot on May 6.
• The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki died after being shot by a man police said was a member of a criminal syndicate, public broadcaster NHK reported.
• Tens of thousands of Algerians held rallies and marches to denounce suicide bomb attacks that stirred worries the oil- and gas-exporting country was sliding back into the daily violence of the 1990s.
• Turkey is committed to reforming its laws by 2013 to allow it to join the European Union, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said.
• The United States believes independence from Serbia is the best option for Kosovo and hopes Russia will support a UN resolution paving the way for such a move, a senior US diplomat said.
• The jailed former head of al Qaeda in Spain told a court he did not know the suspects accused of planning the Madrid train bombings in 2004 but the attack came as no surprise because of the Iraq war.
• Ugandan police used water cannon, teargas, batons and live rounds to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters protesting at the arrest of two politicians accused of inciting anti-Indian violence.
• The spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans has said conservative Christians who cite the Bible to condemn homosexuality are misreading a key passage written by St Paul almost 2,000 years ago.