China told a visiting senior US military commander today that America must stop selling weapons to Taiwan and end military exchanges with the self-ruled island, an official news report said.

Israel has defied world condemnation of the assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, vowing to continue targeted attacks on terror group leaders.

US President George Bush today jumped into an international row over Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s comments that Jews rule the world, condemning them as both “reprehensible” and ”hateful.”

A Romanian truck driver was shot dead in the West Bank today in the first violent incident since Palestinian militants pledged to halt their attacks.

The militant Islamic Jihad organisation has accepted a conditional three-month halt to attacks on Israelis, a leader of the group said today.

A US-sponsored peace initiative was finally moving forward after Islamic militants agreed to halt attacks on Israelis for three months and Israel said it would pull back forces from the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said today that he expects an official announcement later today of an agreement by Palestinian militias to suspend attacks on Israelis.

Islamic militants have agreed to halt attacks on Israelis for three months and a formal truce will be announced before the weekend, Palestinian negotiators said today.

NORTH KOREA yesterday said a 1992 pact intended to keep the divided Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons was a “dead document.”

The job of rebuilding Iraq from its war-torn ruins begins today with the first of a series of meetings to shape an interim authority and a future government.

US President George Bush today moved to head off possible tensions in his relationship with key ally Tony Blair, conceding that the United Nations must play a “vital role” in the reconstruction of post-war Iraq.

SOME of the people who marched for peace last Saturday were probably relaxing in front of their televisions when RTÉ screened The Trials of Henry Kissinger on Sunday night.

The United Nations is under increasing pressure to intensify weapons inspections in Iraq as Britain and the United States continued to build up the heat on Saddam Hussein.

Germany today refused to endorse Tony Blair’s warning about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and said it remains opposed to war, joining France and China in reacting sceptically to a report the United States called “frightening.”

THE US will “not hesitate” to act alone in launching pre-emptive strikes against rogue States, George Bush said yesterday.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an Arab television interview that the United States is trying to do a better job of making its case to Muslims suspicious of the war on terrorism.