¤ Nato said it would send up to 1,000 troops to help hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors who have been waiting for two weeks for help in the rugged mountains of northern Pakistan.

¤ US Representative Tom DeLay appeared in court to face campaign finance charges for the first time, but the session was cut short by his lawyer's charge that the judge was politically biased against the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.

¤ US prosecutors have charged a Texas oil tycoon and two Swiss executives and their companies in connection with secret kickbacks in the UN oil-for-food programme, the US Attorney's office said.

¤ Prosecutors investigating the outing of a covert CIA operative are focusing on whether top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby tried to conceal their involvement from investigators, lawyers involved in the case said.

¤ Iran will stand firm against US "bullying" over its nuclear programme but will never use atomic technology to make bombs, the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

¤ Responding to South Korea's bid for a greater role in its own defence, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington was open to discussing Seoul's desire to assume wartime control of its troops.

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