FORMER White House press secretary Scott McClellan charges in an explosive new book due out next week that US President George W Bush and top aides shaded the truth to make the case for the Iraq war.

A study by two non-profit journalism organisations says US president George Bush and administration chiefs issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terror attacks.

IRAN’S president declared in a letter to US President George W Bush that democracy had failed worldwide and lamented “an ever-increasing global hatred” of Washington.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed a letter that Iran’s president sent to President George Bush yesterday, saying the first direct communication from an Iranian leader in 27 years did not help resolve the stand-off over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

The US and Britain pressed Sudan’s government and Darfur rebels to meet today’s deadline for a peace deal, even as ground units stepped up fighting that has killed at least 180,000 people and left millions more homeless.

President George Bush today named conservative commentator Tony Snow as White House press secretary, putting a new face on a troubled administration.

Iraq’s Shiite alliance nominated tough-talking politician Jawad al-Maliki as prime minister, in a move that broke the long impasse over forming a new government to pull the country out of its sectarian strife.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said today he is resigning, continuing a shake-up in US President George Bush’s administration that has already yielded a new chief of staff and could lead to a change in the Cabinet.

Israel’s security chiefs have met to discuss the Jewish state’s response to a suicide bombing at a packed Tel Aviv fast-food restaurant during the Passover holiday that killed nine people and injured dozens.

Denouncing Iran’s successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the international community, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today the UN Security Council must consider “strong steps” to induce Tehran to change course.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush said yesterday that force is not necessarily required to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, and he dismissed reports of plans for a military attack against Tehran as “wild speculation”.

THE White House has refused to challenge claims that President George W Bush authorised the leaks of intelligence information to counter US administration critics on Iraq.

The White House today declined to challenge assertions that President George Bush authorised the leaks of intelligence information to counter US administration critics on Iraq.

Tom DeLay, once one of the most powerful and feared conservatives in the US Congress, said today he is resigning from the House of Representatives in the wake of two criminal investigations that dimmed his prospects for re-election.

After declaring victory in Israeli elections, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party said today it would quickly form a broad ruling coalition that will pull out of much of the West Bank and draw Israel’s borders by 2010.

THE European Union was joined by the United States yesterday in imposing sanctions on Belarus in retaliation for a crackdown on political protesters after an election that both said was fraudulent.

Police swiftly ended an unprecedented protest in Belarus on today, arresting hundreds of demonstrators in a pre-dawn raid.

OPPOSITION leader Alexander Milinkevich said yesterday that Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko must be excluded from any rerun of presidential elections.

Hundreds of demonstrators shivered and cheered through a frigid night and morning snowfall on a Minsk square, trying to keep up momentum in an arduous and unlikely drive to overturn election results.

Hundreds of demonstrators shivered and cheered through the freezing pre-dawn today in the capital of Belarus, trying to keep up momentum in a drive to overturn a landslide election that gave a new term to authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, declared the overwhelming winner of weekend elections, said today that his opponents had failed to topple him in a foreign-backed “revolution".

US PRESIDENT George Bush has said Iran may pose the greatest challenge to the United States.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday toured the devastated Jericho prison where Israel spirited away six prisoners, denouncing the raid as an ”unforgivable crime".

A Dubai-owned company abruptly abandoned its plan for managing operations at six US ports yesterday, defusing an election-year showdown between President George Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.

Dubai Ports World today finalised its £4bn purchase of P&O while bowing to US political pressure by agreeing to end its quest to take over operations at US ports.

Republican congressional leaders told US President George Bush today the House and Senate both appear ready to block a Dubai-owned company from taking over operations at several US ports.

IRAN threatened the US with "harm and pain" yesterday for its role in hauling Tehran before the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme.

Russia today dampened hopes of a deal with Iran that would ease concerns about its suspected nuclear weapons programme, reminding Tehran that it must first freeze its domestic uranium enrichment.

The Bush administration will conduct a highly unusual second review of potential security risks in a business deal it previously approved for a United Arab Emirates-based company to take over significant operations at six leading US ports.

A United Arab Emirates company has volunteered to postpone its takeover of significant operations at six major US seaports.

Top US officials strongly condemned the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine today, calling it a desperate and despicable act designed to foment sectarian strife.

THE US lags dangerously behind al-Qaida and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.

THE United States has come under international fire after a United Nations report said it should shut the prison at Guantanamo Bay used for terror suspects and release the detainees or put them on trial.

The White House today rejected a recommendation in a UN report to shut the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The man shot by US Vice President Dick Cheney experienced a heart irregularity after birdshot moved into his heart and was moved back to the intensive care unit for further treatment this morning.

America’s former disaster chief Michael Brown, who became the personification of the government’s listless response to Hurricane Katrina, said he told top officials of massive flooding in New Orleans on the day the storm howled ashore.

DENMARK’S Prime Minister yesterday appealed for calm amid what he called a “growing global crisis” over drawings of the prophet Mohammed.

Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam’s revered prophet torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies yesterday – the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

The United States does not plan to raise the security threat level because of a new tape of Osama bin Laden on which he says al Qaida is planning attacks.

OSAMA BIN LADEN warned al-Qaida is preparing new attacks inside the United States, but said the group was open to a conditional truce with the US, according to an audio tape attributed to him yesterday.

Iraq has asked US authorities to release six of the eight Iraqi women in military custody, but not as part of a bid to free a kidnapped American female journalist, a government official said today.

The Bush administration has a deliberate strategy of abusing terror suspects during interrogations, Human Rights Watch said today in its annual report on the treatment of prisoners.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised Iran’s decision to resume its nuclear programme, but clashed over Ms Merkel’s call to shut down the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

US president George Bush said congressional hearings to investigate his domestic eavesdropping programme would be good for democracy as long as they did not give secrets away to the enemy.