• Prospects of ending North Korea's nuclear arms ambitions brightened a little as negotiators considered a plan for Pyongyang to suspend activities at a nuclear plant as a first step to dismantlement. But both North Korea and the US cautioned against assuming a deal was a certainty, and Japan even said imminent agreement on even a limited first step was unlikely.

• A California judge refused to order an emergency DNA test on the remains of former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith but ordered her body preserved until a February 20 hearing in the paternity case surrounding her baby. The ruling was issued as a Florida medical examiner was performing an autopsy on the body of the billionaire's widow, whose sudden death on Thursday in Hollywood, Florida, at age 39 left myriad questions about her tumultuous last months and the future of her five-month-old daughter.

• Britain's food watchdog said yesterday it was investigating whether meat contaminated with bird flu had reached shops, but said there was no threat to consumers. The alarm was raised after the government concluded on Thursday that a bird flu outbreak at a giant turkey farm was probably caused not by wild birds but by contaminated shipments from Hungary, possibly of processed turkey meat.

• France urged the international community to back a new national unity government formed by rival Palestinian factions and other EU countries were cautiously positive on the accord. EU diplomats said it was too early to expect any decision on lifting a freeze on direct aid to the Palestinian government when the 27-nation bloc's foreign ministers meet on Monday but they were likely to issue a positive statement on the agreement.

• A man appeared in a London court charged with planning to kidnap and kill a member of the armed forces in a plot apparently aimed at Muslims who had served with British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. Parviz Khan, 36, was accused of engaging in conduct to give effect to his intention to kidnap and kill a member of the armed forces.