US officials tonight vowed that the international coalition will not be broken by roadside ambushes that increasingly targeted US allies.

Gunmen shot and killed two South Korean workers and wounded two others north of Baghdad, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.

Guerrillas killed two United States soldiers and wounded a third in an ambush in western Iraq, making November the bloodiest month since the war in the country began on March 20.

NORTH KOREA escalated its nuclear standoff with the US yesterday, declaring that it had solved “all the technological matters” involved in using plutonium extracted from its 8,000 spent fuel rods to build atomic bombs.

North Korea’s neighbours reacted cautiously today as the region awoke to news that the isolated communist country was ready to accept a US proposal for six-nation talks aimed at ending a stand-off over its nuclear weapons programmes.

YASSER ARAFAT insisted yesterday he would not be sidelined by a Palestinian political shake-up and said his old nemesis, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was not ready to pay the price for peace.

HOPES that reformist Palestinian prime minister-designate Mahmud Abbas will declare a cabinet were fading yesterday after he said he would no longer discuss the formation of a new government with Yasser Arafat.

MINISTERS from more than 20 countries wrapped up divisive WTO talks yesterday, after failing to find a degree of common ground on key issues of agricultural trade reform and poor countries’ access to life-saving drugs.

A TOP US envoy ended a diplomatic shuttle through Asia on Sunday, reporting no new initiative to defuse a nuclear crisis with isolated North Korea amid signs that Washington wants to talk, but only on its own terms.

THE United States and a bloc of Southeast Asian nations have agreed on a sweeping anti-terrorism treaty intended to plug security holes, boost US aid to the region and free the United States to more easily confront terrorists there.

Japanese and EU officials have agreed to continue their efforts to persuade the US to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming.