Two senior army officers and a police general accused of taking part in an attempted coup in Burundi have been arrested, a presidential spokesman said as it became apparent that a military plot to oust president Pierre Nkurunziza had fizzled out.

Ukraine’s president has pushed for a quick ceasefire in his country’s troubled east, insisting that the conflict must be resolved and not “frozen,” and pressed Kiev’s case to be supplied with defensive weapons.

Syrian rebels holding dozens of Fijian UN peacekeepers hostage have attacked Filipino troops in the Golan Heights, Philippine officials said.

Thousands of Palestinians protesting against the fighting in Gaza clashed with Israeli soldiers as the violence spread to the West Bank.

The diplomat who was president of the UN Security Council in April 1994 apologised today for the council’s refusal to recognise that genocide was taking place in Rwanda and for doing nothing to halt the slaughter of more than one million people.

More than 850,000 people in Somalia are in desperate need of food and “in crisis and emergency conditions,” the director of UN humanitarian operations said.

European Union officials have agreed that the August 21 chemical attack outside Damascus appears to have been the work of Syria’s regime, but that any potential military attack against it should wait for the UN inspectors’ report.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he is "troubled" by allegations that chemical weapons were used in an attack near Damascus.

The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved its first treaty regulating the multi billion-pound international arms trade.

North Korea is to cut the last channel of communication with the South - just days after warning the United States and South Korea of a nuclear attack.

Talks on a new climate pact have started in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it.

A Turkish official says more than 2,300 Syrians have fled across the border into Turkey in the last 24 hours.

Officials were today investigating claims that British war planes bombed a major Libyan oil field, killing three civilian guards and injuring a number of other workers.

Gay men are being murdered across Iraq in a systematic campaign by militia, a human rights group said today.

Israel today rejected growing international criticism of its crackdown on Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, pushing forward with an offensive that has killed more than 100 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, in recent days.

NEGOTIATORS working into this morning expect to reach a compromise on climate-protection talks that may bow to U.S. pressure to drop emission reduction targets.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today warned against the use of force in Iran and against unilateral sanctions to punish Tehran for its nuclear programme.

Powerful earthquakes struck Indonesia for a third day today, terrorising thousands of people who were refusing to return to their homes in fear of tsunami and falling debris.

United Nations weapons inspectors have found a dangerous nerve gas in an office in New York, a UN spokeswoman said today.

The new leaders of Britain and France promised an era of deeper cooperation today at their first meeting since taking office, with co-ordinated efforts against terrorism and a joint push to quickly end the humanitarian “catastrophe” in Darfur.

The Balkans’ "third most-wanted" war crimes fugitive was arrested on the Bosnia-Serbia border today, Serbian officials said.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today warned Israel it would be uprooted if the Jewish state attacked Lebanon in the coming summer.

North Korea has stated to delegates at international nuclear talks on Saturday that it is preparing to shut its nuclear facility.

ETHIOPIAN Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said more than 1,000 people have been killed in fighting between his troops, backing Somali government forces, and Somalia’s Islamist movement.

US and North Korean envoys today ended talks failing to reach an agreement on when to resume six-nation talks on dismantling Pyongyang’s atomic weapons programme.

A CEASEFIRE between Israel and militants in Gaza took hold yesterday and, despite Palestinian rocket attacks in the first hours, Israel promised restraint.

With thousands of people gathered in Central Park to protest against the violence in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, one speaker likened the destruction there to the Holocaust.

United Nations and international maritime agencies promised to give Lebanon immediate technical advice today to help clean up an oil slick, and warned the operation could cost more than €50m.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the White House on Friday that Iran was trying to develop longer-range missiles that could pose a threat to European nations.

Exit polls in Cyprus’s referendums indicate that Greek Cypriots have overwhelmingly rejected a UN plan to reunite the island while Turkish Cypriots have voted heavily in favour of it.

Peter Ustinov was remembered today as a great actor and humorist who made a difference to the world through his good works for children.

A humanitarian commission today took a firsthand look at impoverished villages in northern Colombia, meeting a key demand of a rebel group holding seven foreign backpackers.

The UN atomic watchdog agency has found additional traces of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium in Iran, diplomats said in Vienna today.

The US vetoed a UN resolution that called on Israel to halt threats to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from the West Bank.

The World Health Organisation today put Toronto back on its list of places affected by SARS

The head of the U.N. nuclear control agency said today that documents found at the home of an Iraqi scientist appeared to outline high-tech attempts to enrich uranium in the 1980s.

The US military’s top general insisted today that war withIraq can still be avoided.

UN inspectors hunting for banned weapons of mass destruction that Iraq may be hiding visited a missile plant south of Baghdad that had aroused US suspicions.

Early results tonight showed a party with Islamic roots leading in today’s Turkish elections.

Swiss voters today approved joining the rest of the world as members of the United Nations, after sitting on the global sidelines for more than five decades.

Saddam Hussein says his country opposes any US attack on Iran.

Two police officers have been arrested for allegedly participating in a people smuggling operation which resulted in the death of 374 refugees.

Pakistan is closing its border with Afghanistan again, after 3,000 refugees entered the country.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers today rejected the U.S. claim that alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was the prime suspect in Tuesday's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.