London

The Israeli army killed at least seven Palestinians in a series of ”targeted assassinations” in the West Bank yesterday.

France is planning to tighten restrictions on the smoking of cannabis in an attempt to curb its steadily rising popularity.

Nato has a ”moral obligation” to support the US if it goes to war against Iraq, Nato secretary general George Robertson said today. Church leaders meanwhile used their Christmas messages to appeal for peace.

UN inspectors yesterday opened a new phase in their operations inside Iraq, questioning key scientists in the hope they will provide evidence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons which the Bush administration believes will act as the trigger for military action.

It was not quite the validation they expected, but the aid workers knew they were doing something right when an armed gang stole their 146 toilets.

The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism stole it from the Christians. But one feature of the celebrations has remained unchanged: the consumption of vast quantities of meat.

Britain’s Department of Health accused three pharmaceutical companies on Monday of fixing the price of a blood-thinning drug and said it would sue them

The past caught up with the new chief executive of Vodafone, Arun Sarin, yesterday as details emerged of litigation faced by the Indian-born American businessman from his time in the dotcom industry.

Yasser Arafat’s cabinet yesterday called off next month’s election for a Palestinian president and legislature because it said the Israeli military occupation of West Bank cities made a free ballot impossible.

North Korea has ratcheted up the crisis on the divided peninsula by taking a crucial step towards restarting its suspended nuclear programme.

It was a rally not unlike the hundreds that the ageing Kenyan president, Daniel arap Moi, had presided over during his 24 years in power, with a 50 000-strong crowd allegedly bribed to attend.

Baghdad fought back in the highly charged propaganda battle with the US and Britain yesterday by inviting its arch-enemy, the CIA, to enter Iraq and track down the country’s elusive weapons of mass destruction.

Nestle, the Swiss-based multinational embroiled in controversy over its demand for m from the famine-stricken government of Ethiopia, has promised to donate the money to hunger relief.

Political leaders are preparing their peoples for war. Mighty military machines are ready for action, as thousands of troops take up positions near the borders of Iraq. The bitterness of the rhetoric between Washington and Baghdad suggests war is inevitable, probably imminent. But whether that is true depends on calculations still being made by two men – Presidents George Bush and Saddam Hussein.

A dozen machete-wielding thugs broke into Alice Auma’s Nairobi slum-shack on Thursday, with a message from her main rival in Kenya’s 27 December election. ‘They said, ”hold a rally, and we’ll rape you”,’ says Auma (38) who is standing to regain a civic seat for her small opposition party.

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, last night blocked a global deal to provide cheap drugs to poor countries, following intense lobbying of the White House by America’s pharmaceutical giants.

The communist revolutionary exiled in Britain with a mission to smash oppression has never forgotten the day the tables were turned. Britain was supposed to be a sanctuary for the African National Congress, but a London bobby had other ideas and smashed his fist into Thabo Mbeki’s face.

Nestle, the world’s largest coffee company, was forced into a humiliating climbdown yesterday after a wave of public outrage greeted its demand for a m (£3.7m) payment from the government of famine stricken Ethiopia.

America last night invoked the trigger phrase for war on Iraq, accusing Baghdad of being in ”material breach” of its UN obligations to fully disclose its weapons arsenal.

The Great Barrier Reef has recovered from severe bleaching and is now one of the world’s healthiest coral reefs, the Australian Institute of Marine Science said in a report issued yesterday.

Washington formally inaugurated the ”Son of Star Wars” anti-missile shield yesterday, inviting Britain and other allies to subscribe to the controversial new vision of strategic defence.

The US and Britain edged closer to war yesterday after they judged the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, to have failed the crucial United Nations test by supplying a untruthful declaration about weapons of mass destruction.

The multinational coffee corporation, Nestle, is demanding a m (£3,7m) payment from the government of the world’s poorest state, Ethiopia, as the country struggles to combat its worst famine for nearly 20 years.

The biggest-ever meeting of Iraqi opposition groups published a blueprint yesterday for a transitional Iraqi government in preparation for a US-led war to topple Saddam Hussein.

Mountain people around the world are in danger of losing their cultures and being caught by conflict and environmental degradation, according to a United Nations report. Environmental and social pressures on the remotest regions are escalating.