PRAGMATIST: Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Beijing, criticized because it supplies weapons to Myanmar, is a crucial ingredient in the push for changes there
China is pivotal to strengthening UN efforts to bring about reform in Myanmar and must push the military junta to talk with the democratic opposition, France's foreign minister said.

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The Internet is proving both good and bad news for the major players in Australia's election campaign, as online satirists gleefully mock politicians' carefully crafted messages to voters.

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Myanmar's military government has freed seven members of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party who were held for more than a month following the junta's deadly crackdown on anti-government protests, the party said yesterday.

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GROUNDWORK: The US Secretary of State has lobbied hard for top-level Arab involvement at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, later this month
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travels to the Middle East this week to lay the groundwork for key Israeli-Palestinian talks in the US later this month.

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Police in the Philippines said on Wednesday that "negligence" was the cause of a powerful explosion in a Manila shopping mall that left 11 dead and more than 100 wounded.

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RENT-A-CROWD: A telegram from a railways boss in western Siberia gives a detailed breakdown of how many workers from each section should attend a Novosibirsk rally
The Guardian, MOSCOW

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FALL FROM GRACE: Former hairdresser Patricia Etteh was prevailed upon to step aside after it became clear her position was untenable, one of her aides told the BBC
It is hard to say when, precisely, Patricia Etteh, the speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, a former hairdresser who became the fourth highest official in Africa's most populous nation this year, fell definitively from grace.

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Major powers will meet in London this week to discuss new sanctions on Iran amid a spat between Washington and the UN over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, US officials said on Tuesday.

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Three lead defendants in the 2004 Madrid train bombings were convicted of mass murder and other charges yesterday, but another accused ringleader was acquitted in the culmination of a politically divisive trial over Europe's worst Islamic terror attack.

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FEAR OF FLYING: NASA's efforts to withhold the results of a survey on aviation safety sparked criticism on Capitol Hill and on the editorial pages of dozens of newspapers
NASA administrator Michael Griffin is hinting to lawmakers that he will reverse course and publicly disclose the results of an unprecedented federal aviation survey that found aircraft near-collisions, runway interference and other safety problems occur far more often than previously recognized.

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As millions of American children and adults focused on picking out their costumes or masks for Halloween, a select few have been initiated by experts into the art of deception through disguise.

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It had to be done quickly. Rogue Shiite militiamen were holding hostage a group of Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks who had joined a revolt against al-Qaeda. For the Iraqi government and its US backers, the seven men represented a rare symbol of national unity.

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MORE TROUBLE: The installation of a pair of solar wings, one of the hardest construction jobs ever attempted in orbit, has suffered a setback
A giant solar wing ripped as it was being unfurled by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, creating another problem for NASA at the orbiting outpost.

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China will build a new family of rockets, state media said yesterday, a move that would boost the country's capabilities to put satellites in space and build space stations.

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