Armed dissidents calling for Saddam Hussein’s overthrow took the ambassador hostage today when they occupied the Iraqi embassy in Berlin.

The US government is planning to spend €7.8m to support opponents of Saddam Hussein.

A bomb that blew apart a Jerusalem university cafeteria, killing seven people, claimed victims from around the world, in what an Islamic terror group said was revenge for an Israeli attack.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed a possible interim Palestinian state and other peace ideas with Arab leaders in Washington as US officials cautiously welcomed a promise by the Palestinians’ new security chief to curb attacks on Israelis.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld strongly doubts sending new UN weapons inspectors to Iraq would be worth the effort - a view not officially shared by the State Department.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has withheld a decision on whether Yugoslavia has cooperated sufficiently with the war crimes tribunal and on other issues to avert a freeze in US aid.

The US, seeking to calm rising tensions, wants nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to try to resolve their differences at a conference in Nepal next week, rather than on the battlefield.

US military officials have confirmed Afghanistan isn't the only country where American forces are fighting, or planning to fight, terrorist networks.

Israel is insisting that it will hold on to six West Bank towns until its demands are met, despite stiff US criticism of her widest incursion in seven years.

Israeli-Palestinian violence was escalating again despite US appeals for calm, with six Palestinians and one Israeli dead in a series of incidents two days after the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

The US would consider any links between the IRA and guerrillas in Colombia troubling, the state department has said.

The US would consider any links between the IRA and guerrillas in Colombia troubling, the state department said today.

Israeli undercover troops shot dead a Palestinian militia leader in an ambush in Hebron today just hours after Israeli paratroopers took position at the entrance of another West Bank town in a warning to Palestinian gunmen.