• African Union officials arrived in Somalia to finalise plans for a peacekeeping force as government troops searched for weapons in the latest push to bring back order after weeks of war, an official said. Somalia's interim government wants African peacekeepers to be deployed after its troops, backed by heavily armed Ethiopian forces, ousted Islamists in a lightning December offensive.

• Anti-US leftists behind a South American nationalisation drive stood together as Presidents Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales of Bolivia feted Ecuador's incoming leader Rafael Correa.

• US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Afghanistan for talks with President Hamid Karzai as the latest in a wave of suicide bombers struck in a southern town, killing himself and wounding a passer-by.

• The only criminal trial to result from a three-year investigation of government leaks begins tomorrow and, as in previous Washington scandals, prosecutors will focus on the cover-up, not the crime.

• Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's plan to extend his tenure by two years to 2010 may in fact be the start of a "dignified exit" for one of Africa's most controversial leaders, ruling party sources said.

• Milan's fashion designers, having put up the for sale signs on winter collections, launched their ideas for what men should be wearing next autumn - and Dolce & Gabbana said it would be space-age glitter.

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