• All seven US troops aboard a military helicopter were killed when it crashed near Baghdad, the fifth such aircraft to be lost in Iraq in less than three weeks, a US defence official said.

• Delegates to six-party talks began converging on the Chinese capital seeking to defuse North Korea's smouldering nuclear crisis, but envoys and analysts cautioned that any final deal is a distant prospect. Flying in to a city decked out for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the US chief negotiator said the talks yesterday focused on implementing a 2005 statement offering isolated North Korea economic and security concessions in return for ending its nuclear weapons ambitions.

• Iraq will face serious consequences, including the collapse of its political system, if a US-backed security plan in Baghdad fails, Iraq's parliament speaker warned. US and Iraqi forces are preparing to launch an offensive against militants in the Iraqi capital that is regarded as a last attempt to prevent all-out civil war between politically dominant Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

• More than 1,000 villagers have fled a southern Afghan town as Taliban fighters dig in to repel Nato efforts to drive them out, residents and officials said. Helmand provincial governor Haji Assadullah Wafa said by phone a military operation would soon be launched to recapture Musa Qala, which the Taliban over-ran last week.

• Indonesia signed a memorandum of understanding with a unit of US company Baxter International Inc. to develop a human bird flu vaccine, as Jakarta came under fire for not sharing samples of the virus. Earlier reports of the pact stirred controversy because it had been linked to Indonesia's decision not to share H5N1 bird flu virus samples with foreign laboratories.

• A Rome judge ordered a US soldier to stand trial for killing an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq in 2005 while he was escorting a freed hostage to safety, court officials said. Mario Lozano, of the US Army's 69th Infantry egiment, was charged with voluntary homicide for shooting Nicola Calipari at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport.