NATO is due on Monday to take command of security operations in southern Afghanistan, embarking on its most ambitious mission and hoping a new approach will break a grinding Taliban insurgency. NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will take over at a small ceremony here from a US-led coalition that drove the extremist Taliban from government in 2001 and has since been hunting down its fighters

Amir Peretz, the Israeli defence minister, said today Israel must not agree to an immediate ceasefire in its military operation against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon despite a 48-hour suspension in air attacks. "We must not agree to a ceasefire that would be implemented immediately," Peretz told a heated parliamentary debate. "If an immediate ceasefire is declared, the extremists will rear their heads anew. In a few months we will be back in the same place," he said

An oil spill in one of Russia's largest export pipelines today sparked fears of an environmental catastrophe. The spill in the Druzhba pipeline has contaminated four square miles of water sources near Russia's western border with Ukraine and Belarus. A Russian Natural Resources Ministry spokesman said: "Judging by information reaching the ministry from representatives of environmental organisations, the consequences of the accident may be an environmental catastrophe in the region

Asia's main security forum attended by 25 top policymakers from around the world yesterday homed in on the Middle East war and the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, attending the Asian Regional Forum for the first time, was holding talks on the Lebanon crisis and Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, although North Korea itself wasn't taking part

Israeli aircraft bombed a suspected Hamas weapons factory and border tunnel in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the army said. No casualties were reported in the early morning attacks, part of Israel's month-long assault on Gaza to recover a captured soldier and end cross-border rocket attacks. At least 150 Palestinians, around half of them gunmen, have been killed in the offensive

A prominent Shiite politician called yesterday for Iraqi forces to play a greater security role and for an end to "interference in their work," an apparent reference to U.S. efforts to curb abuses by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. The remarks by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who heads the country's biggest Shiite party, came as the U.S. military planned to move as many as 5,000 U.S. troops with armoured vehicles and tanks into Baghdad in an effort to quell escalating violence

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan Friday, rocking buildings in the capital but causing no damage or casualties, the Central Weather Bureau said. The quake's epicentre was located 82 kilometres east of the Taiwanese port of Nanao, the bureau said. The harbour town lies 80 kilometres southeast of Taipei. Taiwan's weather bureau warned against aftershocks, but said they were not expected to cause any damage because of the epicenter's distance from the island

Adrian White, who studies the psychology of being social, has done a study of world happiness and determined that Denmark is the happiest place on Earth. Six of the top ten countries ranked in the University of Leicester's happiness map are from Europe, but five eastern European nations also make their way into the least happy bottom ten. White analyzed data from more than 100 studies to see how satisfied people were with life in general

The head of Russia's state arms-trading agency said Thursday that Russia has signed contracts with Venezuela for 24 military planes and 53 helicopters, the Interfax news agency reported. The comments by Sergei Chemezov, director-general of Rosoboronexport, were reported as being made on the sidelines of a Kremlin meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Venezuela's anti-U.S. president Hugo Chavez

A strong earthquake rocked parts of Indonesia's North and West Sumatra provinces Wednesday. There were no immediate reports of a tsunami. The 6.1-magnitude earthquake occurred at 6:16 p.m. (7:16 a.m. EDT) and was centered under the Indian Ocean about 60 miles northwest off Nias Island, said Lukito, an official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency