World Highlights

• Islamic militia vowed to turn Somalia into a religious state, pushing north to take more territory after winning a three-month battle for Mogadishu. But thousands of Mogadishu residents protested against the takeover and defeated warlords said they would fight back. Clan elders warned the Islamic side against more advances.

• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the restoration of US military ties with Indonesia was good for both countries and he was committed to ensuring Jakarta access to American training and equipment. The Pentagon chief held talks with Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono, who said Jakarta would study "limited" participation in a US-led programme to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - a scheme that Muslim-majority Indonesia has been wary of joining.

• Indonesia has evacuated about 2,000 people from areas at risk from a volcano spewing hot gas and lava, and expects to move thousands more amid signs of increased activity from Mount Merapi, officials said. The volcano, on Indonesia's main island of Java and about 450 kilometres east of the capital Jakarta, has been sporadically belching out toxic gases and lava for many weeks, with experts saying a major eruption might come at any time.

• Iceland's next leader will be Foreign Minister Geir Haarde, a spokesman for outgoing Prime Minister Halldor Asgrimsson said. Mr Asgrimsson said yesterday he would resign to take the blame for his Progressive Party's poor showing in local elections last month.

• Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signalled he might accept the return of archrival Yulia Tymoshenko to head a liberal government, saying such a proposal would not be "fatal" to coalition talks. The chief obstacle to formation of a government since March elections has been the president's tense relations with Ms Tymoshenko, whom he fired as prime minister only months after the two had spearheaded the country's "Orange Revolution".

• Mexico's presidential race was rattled when gunmen opened fire on the family of a businessman at the centre of a corruption scandal in 2004 that hurt leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. No one was injured in the attack on a car carrying the wife and three children of Carlos Ahumada, an Argentine who was filmed giving bundles of money to former mayor Lopez Obrador's main ally in the City Council over two years ago.