• Nine people, five of them children, were killed in a suicide bomb attack on an army convoy in Afghanistan, police said, while the Taliban hanged three men after accusing them of spying for British troops. With the approach of spring, violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent weeks, following the bloodiest period last year since the Taliban's ousting from power in 2001.

• US and South Korean negotiators missed their deadline to agree a major trade deal but talks continued into the early hours of the morning. It is the second deadline that has gone by in the search for what would be the largest US trade pact in 15 years. The first was on Saturday and the second 1 a.m. on Monday in Seoul (1600 GMT on Sunday).

• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert publicly invited Saudi King Abdullah and other Arab leaders to meet him following an Arab summit's revival of a land-for-peace plan. "I invite for a meeting all the heads of Arab states, including, of course, the king of Saudi Arabia - who I see as a very important leader - to hold talks with us," Mr Olmert said at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told German Chancellor Angela Merkel the time had come to end a year-old economic embargo of the Palestinian government. "There is no justification to maintain it (the embargo) at all... Otherwise it will be understood that this is a deliberate siege against the Palestinian people," Mr Abbas said after meeting Ms Merkel in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

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