It is the Indian wedding of the year. In a lavish display of power and wealth, a United States-based Sikh hotel magnate has thrown a week-long celebration spread over three cities with 300 guests from across the world arriving on three chartered jets for the marriage of his youngest son to an Indian actor and model.

Tensions between Britain and Iran stepped up a notch on Friday when the Iranian foreign minister called on the United Kingdom to pull its troops out of Basra immediately. Minister Manouchehr Mottaki denounced what he described as human rights violations by British troops in southern Iraq.

Harry Whittington, the Republican lawyer shot by United States Vice-President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident in Texas last weekend, emerged from hospital on Friday and apologised to the vice-president for all the trouble the shooting had caused. Whittington absolved Cheney of any responsibility.

The furore over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons hit a new peak on Friday night when at least nine people were reported dead in the Libyan city of Benghazi after a mob set fire to the Italian consulate. The row also showed no signs abating in Pakistan, where a cleric offered a huge reward to anyone who killed the Danish cartoonists.

Rescuers embarked on the seemingly hopeless task on Saturday morning of digging for survivors of a devastating landslide that buried an entire Philippines village, leaving as many as 1 800 people dead. Drenching rain and high winds aggravated the already wretched task of digging through the barrage of mud.

Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chávez, said he would resist an ”imperialist attack” after Washington announced it would pursue an ”inoculation strategy” against his government by creating a united front against its policies. The rhetoric reflected a rapid deterioration in relations between the two countries.