On Wednesday, Zambia called for the immediate suspension of Madagascar from the AU and Sadc. It came hours after Madagascar's highest court backed the handover of power to Mr Rajoelina.

Mr Rajoelina earlier axed a controversial deal for a South Korean firm to lease about half of Madagascar's arable land to grow food corn and palm oil. Widespread protests had already slowed down progress on the plan, which would have used some 1.3m hectares (3.2m acres). Some had said it amounted to "neo-colonialism". Mr Rajoelina told reporters: "In the constitution, it is stipulated that Madagascar's land is neither for sale nor for rent, so the agreement with Daewoo is cancelled."

Opposition to this plan was one of the reasons behind Mr Ravalomanana's loss of popular support.

But Mr Obama warned: "This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect." "The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right - but it comes with real responsibilities."

Mr Obama's message was distributed to news outlets in Iran with subtitles in Farsi, and posted on the White House's official website.

Shortly after coming to office in January, he said "if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fists, they will find an extended hand from us". But earlier this month he extended sanctions against Iran for a year, saying it continues to pose a threat to US national security. In another possible move towards engagement, the state department is said to be considering an overture in the form of a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei before the Iranian elections this summer.

Hamas is complaining of international blackmail, and supporters joined protests outside the building where EU representatives are based in Gaza City. BBC Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says both the EU and the US have been looking into ways to channel money into Palestinian society, possibly through the UN or aid agencies, to keep basic services running.

Hamas, which won elections in January, is described as a terrorist group by the EU and the United States. The EU, the biggest aid donor to the Palestinians, is expected to maintain some humanitarian aid.

By the time he was made director of EGIS, in 1993, two Islamist groups, the Gama'a Islamiya and al-Jihad, were conducting a campaign of bombings and assassinations.

In 1995, the extremists came within an ace of killing Mr Mubarak when 11 assassins opened fire on his limousine in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. The original plan had been to use a normal, soft-skinned vehicle. But the previous day, Gen Suleiman had insisted on flying an armoured car to Ethiopia. This undoubtedly saved Mr Mubarak's life. As the bullets ricocheted off the protected vehicle, Gen Suleiman was sitting beside his president. This searing experience forged the bond of trust between them.

During her March 4 visit to Israel, Clinton said the administration of President Barack Obama would not work with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, unless the Islamist movement recognizes Israel and renounces violence."If there is to be a unity government that includes Hamas, then we would expect that Hamas would comply with the principles as set forth by the Quartet," she said.

The Middle East Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, has set conditions on dealing with Hamas that require the movement to recognize Israel, renounce violence against the Jewish state and comply with past Palestinian-Israeli agreements.Hamas says those conditions are unacceptable.

The limousine Suleiman and Mubarak were travelling in came under fire, killing a number of bodyguards travelling with their convoy, before the driver was able to turn the car round and return to the airport. The attack was blamed on members of the al-Qaeda-linked Egyptian Islamic Jihad, also known as the Society of Struggle, and said to be co-ordinated by Showqi al-Islambouli, a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. His brother, Khalid Ahmed Showqi al-Islambouli, arranged and carried out the assassination of Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, during a military parade in October 1981.

Egyptian and Palestinian officials told AP news agency that Egypt is suggesting the US would accept a commitment from Hamas to "respect" existing Palestinian agreements with Israel, rather than "commit" to them.

Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of Israel, although the group has also offered a long-term truce if Israel withdraws to its pre-5 June 1967 borders.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit is currently in Brussels for talks with officials including European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

The political elites in Europe have not yet responded to these problems. There have been no significant public debates; neither about the euro, EU expansion, a proposed constitution, nor the European Union's responsibilities in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Instead, Europe's political elites have remained silent. EU policies are determined, following the pre-1989 Western European tradition, by a cartel of political elites that is insulated from the democratic public. The more that Europe lacks the acceptance of its citizens, the harder it will befor the Union to meet the coming geopolitical challenges.

The assumption that the European Union lacks competence in foreign and security policy is misguided. For nearly a decade, the European Union has had access to the entire spectrum of institutional capacities -- including military capability -- that is necessary for active participation in global politics. It is an equally unconvincing argument that the 27 member states are simply too difficult to coordinate to actively engage in international politics. On the contrary: the foreign and security strategy of the European Union is remarkably consistent and coherent, from effective multilateralism, to peaceful conflict resolution, to addressing the problem of fragile statehood. Europe only needs to match its words with action. Member states need to abandon their vain attachment to national prerogatives and speak with one foreign policy voice. Here the largest member states -- Great Britain, France, and Germany -- have often been the biggest hindrance.

The era of the G-7 or G-8, in which the western industrial states (and Russia) could keep to themselves, is over. There is no alternative to a G-20 that systematically includes developing nations from all regions of the world into the process of global governance.

Until now, the European Union -- despite its inclusion in the Middle East Quartet -- has always been reluctant to propose solutions to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Instead, Europe has essentially hidden behind the United States. Now, after eight years of the Bush administration, America has lost nearly all of its credibility, and it is going to be a while before President Obama can do anything to significantly reestablish it. There is a need, in other words, for the European Union and its member states to play a larger role -- not least, because the European Union has pro-Arab as well as pro-Israeli positions represented in its institutions and among its member states. The European Union could credibly serve as an honest broker in the region -- if it only wanted to.

Unfortunately, the countries of the European Union allow themselves to be played against one another yet again -- especially along the economic fault line between old and new member states. Europe's answer to the economic and financial crisis is not encouraging. Instead of a coordinated reaction of the EU member states, national measures have taken priority. Even Germany -- despite all its pro-European rhetoric -- has shown little appetite for cooperation.This failure is particularly frustrating in light of the fact that Europe has the world's best institutional capacity to develop integrated answers to crossborder economic challenges.

In addition, there is still a clear asymmetry between negative and positive integration, as political scientist Fritz Scharpf diagnosed in the mid-1990s. The creation of an internal market continues to trump the development of economic and social policies that can steer and correct that very market. It is no accident that the call for a "social Europe" is getting ever louder. The inability for European governments to coordinate their responses to the financial crisis has contributed to the legitimation crisis of European integration.

The post-Cold War era is over. Europe has no choice but to orient itself to the challenges of the future. Before anything else, the European Union needs to gain the approval and trust of its own citizens. The failed referenda pose less of a threat to Europe than does the continent's growing Euro-skepticism and the silence of European elites in the face of criticism "from below." Those who are believers in Europe and European unification must actively take on the challenge of convincing others.

The deceased politician and scholar Peter Glotz, just several weeks after the end of the fateful year 1989, wrote in this very publication that "the decisive question of the next decade will be whether the European elites manage to overcome the narrow categories of the nation state. ... In Europe, the nations are too weak to engage in global politics; at the same time, they are strong enough to prevent the development of an effective supranational European politics." Twenty years later, those observations have unfortunately lost none of their truth.

Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the European Union, said in Brussels on Monday that the group would reconsider its relationship with Israel if it did not remain committed to establishing a Palestinian state.

Mr. Lieberman also has few fans in Egypt, which has acted as an intermediary for Israel in several matters. Some months ago Mr. Lieberman complained that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had not agreed to come to Israel. “If he doesn’t want to, he can go to hell,” he added.“Imagine that Hossein Mousavi wins the Iranian presidency this spring and he names Mohammad Khatami as his foreign minister,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran analyst in Israel, referring to two Iranian leaders widely viewed as in the pragmatist camp. “With Lieberman as foreign minister here, Israel will have a much harder time demonstrating to the world that Iran is the destabilizing factor in the region.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has already criticized Israeli plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and her department has criticized Israel’s banning of certain goods from Gaza.This represents a distinct shift in tone from the Bush era. An internal Israeli Foreign Ministry report during the Gaza war noted that compared with others in the United States, “liberals and Democrats show far less enthusiasm for Israel and its leadership.”

Some Israeli officials say they believe that what the country needs is to “rebrand” itself. They say Israel spends far too much time defending actions against its enemies. By doing so, they say, the narrative is always about conflict.“When we show Sderot, others also see Gaza,” said Ido Aharoni, manager of a rebranding team at the Foreign Ministry. “Everything is twinned when seen through the conflict. The country needs to position itself as an attractive personality, to make outsiders see it in all its reality. Instead, we are focusing on crisis management. And that is never going to get us where we need to go over the long term.” Mr. Gilboa, the political scientist, said branding was not enough. “We need to do much more to educate the world about our situation,” he said. Regarding the extra $2 million budgeted for this, he said: “We need 50 million. We need 100 million.”

The United Nations Environment Programme predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025.

Improving agricultural productivity globally is one way to tackle the problem, he adds. At present, 30-40% of all crops are lost due to pest and disease before they are harvested. Professor Beddington says: "We have to address that. We need more disease-resistant and pest-resistant plants and better practices, better harvesting procedures. "Genetically-modified food could also be part of the solution. We need plants that are resistant to drought and salinity - a mixture of genetic modification and conventional plant breeding.

"I announce my withdrawal from the 10th presidential election," Mr Khatami said in a statement released after a late-evening meeting with his supporters and campaign officials.

he entered this campaign reluctantly and unenthusiastically, adds our correspondent, and it soon became clear that many of those in power in Iran did not want him to return as president. One city prevented him from campaigning with the excuse that it would cause traffic jams.

in a meeting with the Defense Ministry's top staff, Medvedev said Russia needed to push ahead with the changes because "serious potential for conflict remains in many regions." He cited the threat of terrorism and local crises such as the war with Georgia in August, as well as "attempts to expand the military infrastructure of NATO near Russia's borders."

government's plan to drastically reduce the number of officers, who now account for nearly one of three Russian soldiers. By eliminating hollow units that are supposed to call up conscripts in the event of war, the government plans to cut the officer corps from about 355,000 to 150,000, shedding more than 200 generals, 15,000 colonels and 70,000 majors. Meanwhile, the number of ground force units would be slashed from nearly 2,000 to less than 200.

Dozens of military academies, research institutes and hospitals would also be shut, and the overall size of the military would fall from about 1.13 million to 1 million.

Medvedev said the changes would address serious flaws in the military exposed by the Georgian war, the first time Russia has sent its forces to fight abroad since the fall of the Soviet Union. Though Russia easily triumphed in the five-day conflict, analysts say the Kremlin was alarmed by problems with aging weapons, communications and equipment, as well as the command structure.

Medvedev said arms procurement would be "almost entirely preserved" this year despite a budget shortfall but added that "large-scale rearming" would have to wait until 2011. Serdyukov said up to 90 percent of the weapons and equipment used by the military are outdated, and he pledged to bring that figure down to 70 percent by 2015.

He said the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war crimes charges was lamentable because it would undermine Darfur peace talks. A request by the African Union and the Arab League for the Security Council to suspend the indictment for a year should be respected, he said. The indictment “helps to deepen a perception that international justice is racist” because the case is the third to be brought against Africans, Mr. d’Escoto said.

Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan ambassador and a Security Council member, said, “I do not consider that decision racist.”

Mr. d’Escoto supported Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of the United States for falling about $1 billion behind in its United Nations dues. Describing the United States’ attitude toward the Council, Mr. d’Escoto said, “ ‘You either give me the green light to commit the aggression that I want to commit, or I shall declare you irrelevant.’ ” Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States Mission, said, “It’s hard to make sense of Mr. d’Escoto’s increasingly bizarre statements.”

Mr. d’Escoto tends to draw support from countries at odds with Washington, while Western nations accuse him of being stuck in a leftist, Sandinista mind-set. Mr. d’Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest, was Nicaragua’s foreign minister from 1979 to 1990.

The drop in trade will hurt investment and job creation, the bank said. It expects between 16 million and 17 million non-farm jobs to disappear this year, but said the key to avoiding instability was an effective social welfare system.

According to the latest World Bank global forecasts, published in December, the world economy is set to expand at a weak annual rate of 0.9% in 2009, with a 0.1% contraction in developed economies offset by growth in developing countries of 4.5%. A Chinese government think tank this month forecast first-quarter growth would slow to 6.5%, from a 6.8% pace in the fourth quarter last year.

Under a deal reached in June last year, the US agreed to distribute 500,000 metric tonnes of food to North Korea - 400,000 through the UN World Food Programme and the rest through NGOs.

The United Nations said on Monday that 6.9 million North Koreans have not received food aid they desperately need. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the reclusive state in a famine in the 1990s, and the North has relied on outside food aid ever since.

Pyongyang recently put its military on full combat alert and shut its border with the South, in what it said was retaliation for the recent annual military exercise by US and South Korean forces. In January, the North scrapped a series of peace agreements with the South over Seoul's decision to link bilateral aid to progress on de-nuclearisation.