Sudan says it will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court after an international prosecutor accused President Omar al-Bashir of genocide in Darfur. Sudan's UN envoy, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, says the ICC has no jurisdiction in Sudan. Vice-President Ali Osman Taha said the evidence was false and indicated Sudan could try to halt the court's work.

A pro-government rally is due to take place in Khartoum soon and the UN is to begin removing some non-essential staff from Darfur. Sudan's vice-president said that although the authorities would do what they can, but he says they could not guarantee the safety of humanitarian staff working in Darfur.

Judges at the ICC still have to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against Mr Bashir. Behind the scenes, Sudan has been lobbying China, Russia and African nations on the UN Security Council to gather votes to suspend the work of Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Benedict Moran and Peter Martell are in Khartoum, Ana Uzelac is at the ICC in The Hague and UN Correspondents Steve Schiffman and Julie Walker in New York are available for 2-ways.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been arrested outside his home on Wednesday morning. He was stopped outside the gates of his home by armed police wearing balaclavas and taken to police headquarters in a large convoy.

Ibrahim was due to report to the police today over allegations of sexually assaulting a former male aide, but the police decided not to wait. He claims the allegations are false and are being used to derail his political comeback. No reason was given for his arrest.

Steven Gan is available for 2-ways from Kuala Lumpur.

A prisoner exchange between Israel and Lebanon mediated by the International Red Cross is underway at the border between the two countries. Coffins containing the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured in 2006 have crossed from Lebanon into Israel, where DNA tests are being carried out to confirm their identity. Before the swap it was unclear whether Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose capture sparked a 33-day war, were dead or alive.

Israel is now to hand over Lebanese prisoners and the remains of some 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters at the Rosh Hanikra border crossing. One of the prisoners being released is Samir Qantar, who was imprisoned in 1979 for a deadly guerrilla raid in which he killed three Israelis. Lebanon is holding a national holiday to mark the swap, after which Israel will hold no more Hezbollah militants.

Hugh Macleod is going to be at the Lebanese side at Ras Nakura, Annette Young and Sami Sockol, who has been in constant touch with the families of the dead Israeli soldiers, will cover the Israeli side at Rosh Hanikra, and both will be available live from the scene. Nicholas Noe will follow events in Beirut, and GRN correspondents across Israel will be available to cover reaction to the exchange. Please contact GRN in advance to organise coverage.

Pope Benedict XVI has condemned popular culture and consumerism in an address to 150,000 young Catholics in Sydney Harbour. The Pope is visiting the city to mark World Youth Day in Australia; a five-day gathering of Catholic youths from across the world.

The Pope delivered his speech in English and spoke out against "the tedium of false idols" and "false promises". He highlighted drugs and alcohol abuse as examples of modern woes and attacked television and the internet for promoting sex and violence as entertainment.

However, he did not use his address to issue an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. He had previously told journalists that he would make his apology during his stay.

Tim Stackpool and Roger Maynard are following this story in Sydney.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has confirmed that a Red Cross symbol was worn by one of the rescuers during the mission that freed Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages. Uribe has apologised to the Red Cross and said the emblem was worn by a nervous soldier acting against orders.

Falsely using the Red Cross symbol is a violation of the Geneva Conventions because it can put humanitarian workers at risk when carrying out missions in war zones, and it undermines the neutrality of the Red Cross. A Red Cross spokesman says Florian Westphal is pleased that President Uribe acknowledged the mistake. The name of the soldier who wore the emblem will not be released.

Mark Duffy and Mike Ceasar in Bogota are covering this story.

Chinese tourists are to start flying out to Taiwan on direct weekend charter flights, which began operating earlier this month, marking the warming of ties between the two countries.

China has promised that from Friday up to 3,000 citizens will be allowed to visit Taiwan each day. Nearly 2,000 tourists will arrive in Taiwan this weekend, all travelling in mandatory tour groups. Until recently China tightly controlled the number of people allowed to travel to Taiwan, with less than 300,000 visiting each year.

Ties between China and Taiwan, which were cut amid civil war in 1949, have improved since the election of Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou.

Kathrin Hille and Cindy Sui in Taipei and Jamila Trindle and Daniel Schearf in Beijing are across this event.

Nelson Mandela, the first black leader of South Africa who was instrumental in ending apartheid, is celebrating his 90th birthday today.

After a series of public appearances, he was expected to celebrate quietly with his family at his home village of Qunu in south eastern South Africa. However, there are now a variety of events planned including a local football festival, a concert and dinner for 500 on Saturday.

Mr Mandela was jailed for 27 years as head of the banned ANC. Since stepping down as president in 1999 he has campaigned against HIV/Aids and helped secure his country's hosting of the 2010 football World Cup. Former President FW de Klerk, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, has led tributes to the man who succeeded him, describing him as one of the greatest figures of the 20th Century.

In other news, South African President Thabo Mbeki is to meet African Union chief Jean Ping in Zimbabwe's capital, Pretoria, today to discuss brokering deal to end Zimbabwe's political crisis.

A memorandum of understanding setting out conditions for talks on a power-sharing agreement between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was expected to be signed this week. However, Mr Tsvangirai has not yet signed it. His party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), says their demands have not yet been met.

Bill Corcoran and Nicholas Champeaux in Johannesburg are available for 2-ways.

Officials from more than 30 countries are meeting in Geneva today to revive efforts to agree on a global trade deal. Negotiators from the US, EU and emerging powers such as China, India and Brazil are under pressure to reach an agreement before the end of the year.

However, huge obstacles remain in the way of the agreement, such as the extent of acceptable cuts to farm subsidies and how far trade in services such as banking should be liberalised.

Observers say that with a new US president coming into office in early 2009, countries need to build on momentum to reach a deal before then, but no real progress has been made to overcome the major stumbling blocks in recent months. European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said the talks were "perhaps the last great opportunity" to achieve a deal.However, he warned there was still a lot of work to do on all sides.

John Zaracostas will be reporting from Geneva. He can also provide exclusive interviews with the World Trade Organisation Director-General Pascal Lamy and Ambassador Don Stephenson of Canada, who chairs the segment of the talks on industrial tariffs, and Ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand who chairs the politically sensitive agriculture negotiations in the talks.

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has arrived in Iraq where he will meet senior Iraqi officials, military leaders, US embassy officials and service personnel and civilian staff working in the country.

Mr Obama has advocated a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, should be elected president. He says that Afghanistan should instead be the central focus in the battle against terrorism.

Speaking in an interview in the Afghan city of Kabul on Sunday, Mr Obama said some of the troops withdrawn from Iraq should be sent to Afghanistan to fight against a resurgent Taliban and control escalating violence. Mr Obama is on a major foreign tour, which will also include Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the UK, designed to bolster his foreign policy and security credentials.

Said Rifai and LA Times correspondent Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad is following the visit.

 

Three people have been wounded in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in a suicide attack, Afghan officials say. Three civilians riding in a minibus were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up close to Barbur's Gardens, containing the tomb of the founder of the Mughal empire.

Afghanistan has seen a sharp increase in violence recently, with the Taliban vowing to step up attacks in the capital. Earlier this month, 41 people were killed in a suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Rachel Reid and Tom Coghlan in Kabul are covering this event.

 

Cambodia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to address the tense stand-off with Thailand near the site of an ancient temple. The stand-off began when the UN approved Cambodia's application to name the Preah Vihear temple a World Heritage Site.

The dispute centres on 4.6 sq km around the 11th Century temple. Thai troops moved into the area over a week ago, after Cambodian guards arrested three Thai protesters. Since then more than 500 Thai and 1,000 Cambodian soldiers have gathered on opposite sides of the disputed land. The foreign ministers of both nations are due to meet other regional leaders later on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the ASEAN regional meeting in Singapore, to try to come to an agreement.

Liam Cochrane is reporting from Preah Vihear temple, Guy De Launey and Cat Barton in Phnom Penh and David Piper and Andrew Chant in Bangkok are available for 2-ways.
 

The European Commission is to block two key Bulgarian agencies from using EU funds worth hundreds of millions of euros due to concerns over corruption and organised crime.

The penalty accompanies a series of reports, worded in the toughest terms ever used about a member state, condemning Bulgaria's failure to tackle deep rooted corruption. Bulgaria is facing the loss of millions if not billions in EU aid.

Romania also comes under attack in the reports, due to be published today, but will escape penalties for now. The reports reflect the growing sense of frustration among other EU countries. 

Patricia Kelly, Stephen Castle, Francoise Tihon in Brussels, Albena Shkodrova in Sofia and Iulian Muresan in Bucharest are across this event.

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has pledged to strengthen US ties with Israel whilst on a visit to Israel and the West Bank.

The senator will hold talks with the Israeli government, opposition leaders and is expected to meet Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Obama will head to Germany on Thursday morning on the next step of his foreign tour, designed to bolster his foreign policy and security credentials.

Annette Young, Tim Butcher and LA Times correspondent Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem are covering the visit.

The trial of a pilot of an Indonesian plane that crashed at an airport on Java island last year, killing 21 people, has begun.

Marwoto Komar is charged with negligence after a report into the crash at Yogyakarta concluded he had been flying too fast and landed at too steep an angle. The Boeing 737, carrying journalists, diplomats and officials accompanying the Australian then-Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on a visit to the city, skidded off the runway and burst into flames on 7 March 2007.

The trial is expected to last several months. Mr Komar could face a life sentence if he is convicted.

Michel Maas and John Aglionby in Jakarta are covering the trial.
 

US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has kicked off the European leg of his international tour, landing in Berlin today.

The Democratic Senator is to deliver the only public speech of his tour at the Victory Column in central Berlin's Tiergarten Park, with tens of thousands of people expected to attend. He is also meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir and Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit.

The Illinois senator is popular in Germany with surveys suggesting three-quarters of people want him to be the next US president. Mr Obama will next head to France where he will meet President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris on Friday, before wrapping up his tour in London.

Peter Bild in Berlin and GRN correspondents in Paris and London are following Obama's tour.

A Qantas Airlines passenger plane on its way to Melbourne from London had to make an emergency landing in the Philippines due to a large hole in its fuselage. The Boeing 747-400, with 346 passengers and 19 crew, was diverted to Manila shortly after leaving Hong Kong and a company spokesperson reported it had landed safely. The hole, which created cabin pressure problems, was about 2.5m to 3m in diameter, and engineers are now investigating what caused it. The passengers looked frightened and sick after landing, said an airport official.
Dean Bernado in Manila is covering this story.
 

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is set to meet the King of Spain, Juan Carlos,  for the first time since the two fell out at a conference in Chile last November. The row started when Chavez accused the former Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Asnar, of being "a fascist". King Juan Carlos, in response, told Chavez to "shut up". The exchange stirred an outrage, followed by diplomatic tension between the two countries. Before leaving for the Spanish island of Mallorca, Mr Chavez said that he would like to hug the king, but also made it clear that he has no intention of shutting up.
Guy Hedgecoe and Elisabeth Nash in Madrid and Katja Altmann in Mallorca are following Mr Chavez's visit to Spain.
 

A Qantas Airlines passenger plane on its way to Melbourne from London had to make an emergency landing in the Philippines due to a large hole in its fuselage. The Boeing 747-400, with 346 passengers and 19 crew, was diverted to Manila shortly after leaving Hong Kong and a company spokesperson reported it had landed safely. The hole, which created cabin pressure problems, was about 2.5m to 3m in diameter, and engineers are now investigating what caused it. The passengers looked frightened and sick after landing, said an airport official.
Dean Bernado in Manila is covering this story.
 

Six people have been killed in a missile strike in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, officials say. The missile, reportedly from Afghanistan, hit a house next to a mosque in the village of Azam Warsak.

A Pakistani security official said it was not clear if the missile had been launched by Taliban militants or NATO-led forces fighting them. In recent months the US and its allies have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in military and other forms of assistance to help Pakistan's new government tackle militancy in borde tribal areas.

The US is also concerned about peace deals that Islamabad has been signing with some of the radical groups in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.

Shaheen Buneri in Peshawar and Saeed Shar in Islamabad are covering this story.

The bombings in Istanbul's busy residential Gungoren area on Sunday, came hours before the constitutional court began deliberations over
whether to ban the ruling AK Party.

The Islamist-based AK party forms the
country's government and won a resounding victory in elections last year. Turkey's secular elite believe the AK Party is attempting to impose an Islamic social agenda on the secular nation.

Turkish authorities have played down suggestions that Islamist groups planned the attack. The country's security services said the attack bore the hallmarks of rebels from the separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The group has attacked Turkish civilians before, and could be seeking revenge for recent operations by the Turkish military against its bases.

So far no group has claimed responsibility for Sunday's double bombing in the capital, which claimed 16 lives and left 154 wounded.

David O'Bryne, Robert Tait and Mass Mossman in Istanbul are across this
event.

Zimbabwe's opposition says discussions with President Robert Mugabe's party to solve the political crisis have reached a deadlock. The MDC spokesman, George Sibotshiwe told reporters he was unable to give any further details, but sources in the party said Mugabe's offer to appoint opposition leader Morgan Tvsangirai third vice-president was "insulting". The talks opened last week in South Africa, in a secret location near the country's capital, Pretoria, after a rare meeting between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai. Both men claim victory in this year's elections.
Bill Corcoran and Sebastian Berger in Johannesburg are following the talks.
 

Amnesty International says human rights in China are worsening in the run-up for the Olympic games in Beijing, which are to open in ten days. The organization has documented suppression of journalists and human activists, and arbitrary detention, all within a system of "re-education through labour". Amnesty calls on the world leaders who intend to attend the Olympic games to speak out against the human rights violations in China. China refused to comment on the report prior to its publication, but the government routinely denies human rights abuse allegations. Beijing argues that its economic management has improved the quality of life of hundreds of millions of people. The government-linked China Society for Human Rights Studies rejected Amnesty's criticisms. The society's spokeswoman Xiong Lei said Amnesty reports "always say that China's human rights situation is getting worse, but that is contrary to the feeling of most Chinese people." Ms Xiong admitted to feeling that "we have a problem", but stressed: "we are solving them and the human rights situation is getting better and better".
Daniel Schearf and Jamila Trindle in Beijing are covering the run-up to the Olympic Games. Christopher Lee and Christopher Walker in London, the headquarters of Amnesty International are available for 2-ways.
 

EU ambassadors are to discuss Serbia's EU ambitions following the arrest last week of the former wartime leader Radovan Karadzic. The meeting in Brussels comes as hard-line nationalists take part in a mass rally in Belgrade to protest over the arrest of the Bosnian Serb - who many regard as a war hero. Serbia's pro-EU leadership is in favour of joining the European Union and hopes the arrest will strengthen their case for membership. However, some EU members, including the Netherlands, have expressed concern, claiming Serbia has not dealt with legacy of the war in the Balkans. Mr Karadzic is expected to be extradited to The Hague later this week, once his appeal is dealt with.
Patricia Kelly, Stephen Castle and Francoise Tihon in Brussels, Neil MacDonald, Shiv Sharma and Ana Uzelac in Belgrade and Simon Jennings in The Hague are across this event.
 

An Iraqi operation backed by American troops launched against insurgents in the north-eastern Iraqi province of Diyala is pushing ahead.

The operation was launched at dawn on Tuesday in the region, which is one of the last al-Qaeda militant strongholds in the country. A curfew was imposed across the province as troops and police deployed in its capital, Baquba.

A US army spokesman in Iraq said the goal of the Diyala operation is to destroy criminal elements and terrorist threats in the province, and to eliminate smuggling in the region. The province has proved one of the hardest areas to pacify.

LA Times correspondents Said Rifai and Ned Parker in Baghdad are across this story.

The former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic has arrived in The Hague where he is to face trial before a UN war crimes tribunal.

Mr Karadzic was delivered to a detention unit in the Netherlands hours after some 10,000 people attended a rally to protest his arrest and extradition. Over 40 people - many of them police officers - were injured in clashes during the final speeches at the rally which was organised by the hard-line nationalist Radical Party.

The former Bosnian Serb leader was arrested in Belgrade after 13 years on the run. He has been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s.

Simon Jennings in The Hague, Ana Uzelac, Neil MacDonald and Shiv Sharma in Belgrade are across this event.