UK-World Summary
Obama offers U.S. greenhouse gas cut
WASHINGTON - The United States unveiled a plan to cut greenhouse gases by 2020 on Wednesday and said President Barack Obama will attend U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen next month -- before other world leaders show up. Obama would go to the December 7-18 talks in Copenhagen on December 9, the eve of a ceremony in nearby Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. He would not return, however, for the final days when most hard bargaining is likely.
Allied response to Afghan plan to take time
BRUSSELS - NATO warned on Wednesday that its European members are unlikely to commit extra troops to Afghanistan immediately after President Barack Obama announces next week an expected boost to U.S. forces in the country. NATO, which leads a coalition of more than 40 countries in Afghanistan, said Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen would ask allies to make a "commensurate" response, while accepting that it would not be possible to match the United States.
India on the vigil but remains vulnerable to attacks
MUMBAI - The paramilitary troops outside the Trident and Taj Mahal hotels suggest a higher level of security a year after militants laid siege to Mumbai, but it may all be a mirage as the country still remains very vulnerable. While some improvements in security have meant there has not been another attack by Islamist militants since Mumbai, the country's many chaotic cities and its 1.2 billion people make it almost impossible to plug all security loopholes.
More bodies at Philippine massacre site
AMPATUAN, Philippines - Philippine security forces found 11 more bodies Wednesday at the site of an election-related massacre in the south of the country, taking the toll to 57 dead, officials said. Not all have been identified, but 22 of them were believed to be journalists, making Monday's attack the deadliest ever on the media anywhere in the world. Thirty-three of the victims were men and 24 were women, police said.
Pakistan court charges Mumbai attack suspects
ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani court indicted seven Pakistani suspects on terror charges on Wednesday in connection with last year's attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, a defence lawyer said. Pakistani security agencies have also detained a former army major for possible links with two men arrested in Chicago on terrorism charges, an army spokesman said.
Israel announces partial settlement freeze plan
JERUSALEM - Israel announced on Wednesday a plan to limit settlement construction for 10 months in a bid to revive peace negotiations with the Palestinians who said the partial moratorium did not meet their terms for talks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal excludes areas of the West Bank that Israel annexed to its Jerusalem municipality after capturing the territory in a 1967 war and building projects already under way, government officials said.
Khmer Rouge jailer expresses "excruciating remorse"
PHNOM PENH - The Khmer Rouge's chief torturer and jailer expressed "excruciating remorse" on Wednesday for more than 14,000 people killed under his watch at a notorious prison during Cambodia's ultra-Maoist revolution of the 1970s. In the final week of testimony for the first senior Khmer Rouge cadre to face the U.N.-backed "Killing Fields" tribunal, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, said he was solely liable for the killings but that he served a mafia-type group.
Huge U.N. Congo force fails against rebels - experts
KINSHASA - The massive U.N. peacekeeping effort in eastern Congo has failed to deliver a knockout blow to Rwandan rebels while local insurgents have seized new territory under its nose, United Nations experts said Wednesday. Far from resolving the root causes of the violence, the presence of the world's biggest peacekeeping mission has aggravated the conflict in North and South Kivu provinces, the report seen by Reuters Wednesday said.
U.S., U.N. aim to end Iraq vote impasse
BAGHDAD - U.S. and U.N. officials have proposed solutions to Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president to stop him vetoing for a second time a law needed for an election to take place next year, an official said on Wednesday. Seen as a milestone for Iraq's fledgling democracy as it emerges from sectarian war set off by the 2003 U.S. invasion, the vote is likely to be delayed past its due date in January, possibly affecting U.S. plans for a partial pullout next year.
North Korea's Kim says China friendship "unbreakable"
BEIJING - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Wednesday told the visiting Chinese defence minister that his isolated country's friendship with China was "unbreakable," even as ties have been tested by the North's nuclear tests. Relations between China and nuclear-armed North Korea, once described as being as close as "lips and teeth," have soured in recent years, especially since Pyongyang held nuclear test blasts in 2006 and again this year in May.