• President George W. Bush will try to rally Americans behind his new Iraq plan in a State of the Union speech that will propose domestic initiatives on energy and health care. It will be the first time Mr Bush will give his annual address before a US Congress controlled by opposition Democrats, and faced with that new reality, he will make a fresh call for bipartisanship.

• A UN envoy said Iraq was sliding "into the abyss of sectarianism" and urged Iraqi political and religious leaders to halt the violence after two car bombs in a Baghdad market killed 88 people. US forces clashed with gunmen in central Baghdad and residents said they saw a helicopter come down in the area - a report the US military said appeared to refer to a civilian aircraft crash.

• Ethiopian forces who helped Somalia's interim government rout rival Islamists in a war over the New Year began leaving the chaotic Horn of Africa nation's capital, Ethiopia said. "Starting today, we will withdraw our forces from Mogadishu," General Suem Hagoss said at a ceremony in the volatile coastal capital where former warlords and faction leaders handed over piles of weapons to the newly installed government.