Top French officials are holding a high-level conference with European and US officials over president Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal for France to rejoin Nato’s integrated military command after a 43-year absence.

NATO agreed last night to resume formal ties with Russia, suspended after Moscow’s war with Georgia, in the hope of winning Russian backing for its struggle to stabilise Afghanistan.

Nato agreed to resume normal relations with Russia today, seven months after it froze ties in response to Moscow's invasion of Georgia.

Barack Obama’s plan to nearly double American troop numbers in Afghanistan needs to be matched by a similar surge in development workers and aid funding, Nato’s secretary general says.

SHIPPING officials from around the world yesterday called for a military blockade along Somalia’s coast to intercept pirate vessels heading out to sea.

NATO allies reached a deal yesterday on a US call for direct attacks on the Afghan drugs trade that the alliance’s military commander said is key to bringing security to the country, NATO said.

Nato joined a growing international force to protect vessels off Somalia's perilous coast, sending military ships to the treacherous waters where pirates are negotiating the release of an arms-laden tanker.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today that the UK Government was in “full support of the territorial integrity” of Georgia.

Diplomats from every Nato nation have demanded immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia in a show of support from the US ally's capital that made no promise of faster membership in the alliance.

NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer arrived in Tbilisi to show support for the ex-Soviet state after its war with Russia.

A senior Western diplomat says talks with Russia have collapsed on the sensitive issue of sending additional international monitors to keep tabs on South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia took the first steps towards a troop pullback from Georgia, but at the same time paraded blindfolded and bound prisoners on armoured vehicles and seized four US Humvees.

RUSSIAN soldiers took about 20 Georgians in military uniform prisoner at a key Black Sea port in western Georgia yesterday, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered American military vehicles awaiting shipment back to the US.

America warned Russia today not to try to redraw the map of Europe in the wake of its invasion of Georgia.

Russian and Georgian troops were heading towards a clash in the breakaway province of South Ossetia today.

NATO decided yesterday not to put Georgia and Ukraine on track to join the alliance after vehement Russian opposition, but the alliance pledged that the strategically important Black Sea nations will become members one day.

Nato bowed to Russian pressure today by delaying plans to expand eastwards to include two former Soviet republics.

Nations on the front line in Afghanistan stepped up pressure on their Nato allies today warning their refusal to join the battle was threatening the country’s future.

US defence secretary Robert Gates is expected to crank up pressure on European allies who refuse to send troops to the front line against the resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Nato is investigating claims that its planes killed 14 members of an Afghan civilian road construction crew while hunting Taliban fighters in a mountainous region.

GEORGIA’S pro-Western president said yesterday the country would hold early presidential elections in January to defuse a crisis fuelled by protests against him.

Pentagon chief Robert Gates said he saw little sense in air strikes or major ground assaults by US or Turkish forces against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq until more is known about their locations along the border.

Britain’s Nato partners were urged to send more troops to Afghanistan today by the organisation’s secretary-general.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is in Pakistan today for talks with Pakistani leaders on Afghanistan, where the alliance troops have carried out deadly offensives against Taliban insurgents in recent weeks.

The European Union and the Nato alliance hailed Boris Yeltsin today as a healer of the Cold War divide who opened up Russia to the rest of Europe.

Italian Premier Romano Prodi’s government has won a Senate vote to keep Italy’s troops in Afghanistan, despite opposition from some radical leftists in the ruling coalition.

BRITAIN’S Defence Secretary Des Browne yesterday announced the deployment of 1,400 extra troops to Afghanistan to tackle a threatened Taliban spring offensive, days after Tony Blair announced a major withdrawal from Iraq.

Nato’s secretary-general today warned the alliance will not tolerate violence in Kosovo just days after clashes between police and ethnic Albanians left two dead.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed US policy for inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons to defend themselves from an “almost uncontained use of military force” – a stinging attack that underscored growing tensions between Washington and Moscow.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today backed an initiative by Italy to push for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.

Nato leaders pledged at the end of a summit today to stay the course in Afghanistan despite mounting casualties and some governments’ refusal to send troops into combat in the most dangerous regions.

Nato’s military operation in Afghanistan can be successful, the alliance’s chief said today, urging member countries not to lose heart despite a strengthening Taliban insurgency and unexpectedly high casualties.

Nato’s secretary general today said all 26 member nations will allow their troops in Afghanistan to provide emergency support to allied units anywhere in the country, despite criticism that some are refusing to authorise commanders to send their soldiers into more dangerous regions.

Nato's Secretary-General today said he is saddened by recent deaths of Afghan civilians, and that the alliance is committed to defending democracy in a nation once ruled by the repressive Taliban regime.

The European Union and Nato today condemned North Korea’s nuclear test, saying it endangered peace around the world.

British defence secretary Des Browne today denied that senior military officers have urged the Government to withdraw troops from Iraq to concentrate on the campaign in Afghanistan.

Nato defence ministers face a tense meeting in Portoroz, Slovenia, today with their Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov, after the Western alliance angered Moscow last week by agreeing to deepen co-operation with Georgia.

Nato defence ministers yesterday approved an extension of the alliance’s Afghan security mission across the entire country, taking in the volatile eastern region and bringing up to 12,000 more US troops under allied command.

MILITANTS have regrouped in Afghanistan’s western provinces and ignited violence that has killed a dozen people in two days, officials warned yesterday.

As Nato troops exert pressure on Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, militants have regrouped in western provinces and ignited violence that has killed a dozen people in two days, officials said today.

Nato defence ministers expressed confidence today that their beefed-up peacekeeping force in Afghanistan will stem the recent surge in violence as Nato troops move into the southern heartland of the deposed Taliban regime.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed today that “no one could make the Iranian nation” give up its nuclear technology.

Nato defence ministers will today seek to calm Islamic anger over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons at their first meeting with counterparts from Israel and six Arab nations.

Nato will have AWACS surveillance planes patrolling the skies over Germany during the World Cup, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said today.