• Marking the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, President George W. Bush warned skeptical Americans that a swift troop withdrawal would have devastating consequences for US security. With polls showing him near the weakest point of his presidency, MrBush defended his Iraq policy to a nation increasingly opposed to the war and unsupportive of his drive to send in nearly 30,000 additional troops.

• Zimbabwe's embattled government yesterday summoned and threatened to expel Western ambassadors it accuses of backing an opposition drive to oust President Robert Mugabe from power. Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi told Zimbabwe state television that he had warned envoys accredited to Harare that Mugabe's government would not hesitate to boot out those who support opposition politics.

• US envoy Christopher Hill said talks on scrapping North Korea's nuclear weapons programme had overcome an impasse over frozen bank accounts and now needed to map out steps towards disarmament. Assistant Secretary of State Hill said a dispute over North Korean accounts frozen in Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA) could be called closed after the US Treasury announced that $25 million would be released to Pyongyang.

• The armed wing of Hamas said it carried out its first attacks against Israel since a shaky November truce in the Gaza Strip, shooting a utility worker near the border and firing two mortar bombs at soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office denounced what it called a terror attack and said it showed the new Palestinian unity government, dominated by Hamas, was failing to meet Western demands to halt violence and recognise Israel.