• A top US general said insurgents in Iraq were using crude chemical bombs in a new campaign to create instability, as US and Iraqi forces stepped up a security crackdown in Baghdad. Two bombs using chlorine gas have killed up to 11 people this week. The blasts, one in Baghdad and the other north of the capital, caused toxic fumes that have made scores more sick.

• The Islamic militant group Hamas accused the US of trying to thwart European efforts to ease an economic blockade of a new Palestinian unity government. The so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators, comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, repeated a demand on Wednesday that any Palestinian government renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept interim peace deals.

• US and Russian officials sought to play down their differences in talks on global security but a more conciliatory tone was not expected to fix US-Russian relations which are at their lowest ebb in years.

• The hunt for the bombers of a train from India to Pakistan spread to several north Indian states as investigators said they were pursuing new clues and had detained six people for questioning.

• Sixteen people died and 17 were missing after a fire broke out on an Indonesian ferry off Jakarta Bay, with desperate passengers hurling themselves off the blazing vessel into the sea.