WORLD

U.S. Senator John Kerry raised the possibility on Wednesday that a major energy and climate change bill he is trying to craft might not contain the cap and trade mechanism for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Switzerland will accept a detainee from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba after the United States requested the Alpine country and other states to house prisoners.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked Russia on Wednesday to give the Western military alliance more help in Afghanistan but failed to get an immediate pledge of assistance from the Kremlin.

Britain said on Wednesday it would set up a new military air safety body after a probe into a Royal Air Force plane crash in Afghanistan that killed 14 people found serious faults in safety procedures.

The Treasury is working on a number of fronts to use the government's $700 billion bailout fund to boost lending to small businesses, a senior Treasury official said on Wednesday, adding that tax incentives to boost hiring should be considered.

The Obama administration said on Tuesday it will move some Guantanamo Bay detainees to an Illinois prison and hold U.S. military commission trials there in plans immediately criticized as risky by Republicans.

European leaders are courting some African, Asian and Latin American nations to counter the clout of China and the United States at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, French officials said.

U.S. President Barack Obama has written a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il amid efforts by the United States to persuade Pyongyang to return to nuclear disarmament talks.

The Kyoto Protocol which binds nearly 40 rich nations to limit carbon emissions is in intensive care and global negotiations to extend the pact have stalled, Environment Minister Jairam Rameshsaid on Wednesday.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who helped steer the U.S. economy through its darkest days since the Great Depression, was named Time magazine's 2009 Person of the Year on Wednesday.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on Wednesday extended until further notice the tenure of Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority, PLO officials told Reuters.

Detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was briefly allowed out of her home on Wednesday by the military government to meet senior members of her party and one said they had agreed to changes in the party leadership.

Italian police have arrested a 26-year-old man who tried to reach the hospital room of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is recovering from an attack on Sunday that left him with a fractured nose and broken teeth.

World leaders took the stage at the largest ever climate talks on Wednesday as ministers scrambled to rescue troubled negotiations on a pact to avoid dangerous global warming.

A senior Iranian oil official said on Wednesday a move by U.S. lawmakers to target the Islamic Republic with fuel sanctions would not cause any problems because Tehran had many suppliers.

Danish police detained 230 people on Wednesday as protesters stormed barricades around a global climate summit and a handful briefly broke through, witnesses and a police spokesman said.

Thai investigators said Tuesday they have found mass weapons including rocket-propelled grenades, components for surface-to-air missiles and other armaments seized from a plane setting off via North Korea.

The United Nations Climate summit (COP15) is likely to reach a final deal as world leaders were beginning to arrive at Copenhagen.

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued his first public statement on Tuesday saying that love always defeats envy and hatred two days after he was attacked.

China and the G77 claimed that the Copenhagen Climate talks have broken down, degenerating into a fight between developed and the developing world.

Islamist militant groups will fight alongside Iran if the country is attacked by Israel, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama visited a Home Depot on Tuesday in Alexandria, Northern Virginia and delivered a speech intending to stimulate the economy by creating more jobs.

A new vaccine against polio, being used for the first time on children in Afghanistan this week, will be critical in the drive to eradicate the crippling virus, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

Global talks on climate change still lack clarity and could even break down over serious outstanding issues with only three days to go before the world has to agree an outcome, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Danish hosts urged countries on Tuesday to compromise to salvage agreement on a new U.N. pact aimed at averting dangerous climate change.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed on Thursday to cooperate to lead the Copenhagen talks to the success.

Leading U.S. senators on opposite sides of the healthcare debate are emphasizing different parts of a proposed bill to show that while health insurance coverage will expand and individual costs for healthcare will drop, overall spending by the federal government will grow.

President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday the Palestinians would only resume peace talks if Israel fully halted settlement building in the occupied West Bank, but ruled out any return to violence.

China on Tuesday warned Western countries against taking up the case of a prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo, who is facing trial for subversion, after the United States and European Union called for his release.