<B> MUMBAI. Jolie says role of slain reporter's wife challenging.</B> Angelina Jolie, who portrays the wife of a murdered American journalist in the film A Mighty Heart, is keen to do justice to a role she says is more about breaking down cultural barriers than terrorism. Jolie plays the part of Mariane, wife Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002 while investigating Islamic militants in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. “Playing her role is certainly challenging for me, as I have to make the world understand this woman and her family,” the sultry actor, who has beenshooting in India for almost a month, said in remarks published yesterday by the Times of India. “We need to tell the story of Daniel Pearl and the reason we are making this film is because it's very important to have a dialogue between the two cultures,” she told the daily. Barring a few background shots, the movie could not be filmed in Pakistan due to security fears and much of it is taking place in the western Indian cities of Pune and Mumbai.

<B>TEHRAN. Iran soon to take “final step” in atomic plan. </B>Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday his country would soon take the “final step” in its nuclear programme, Iran’s official news agency reported without saying what that would involve. He did not explain what the “final step” was, but Iran has said it will press ahead with its atomic plans despite UN calls to halt uranium enrichment, which the West believes is part of a plan to build atomic bombs. Tehran says its programme is peaceful. “The Iranian nation is about to take its final step in the nuclear issue,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying, without giving further details.

<B>SINGAPORE. Bush to reassure Asia allies after election blow. </B>A politically weakened US President George W. Bush returned to the world stage yesterday to reassure Asian allies he remains committed to confronting a nuclear North Korea, fighting terrorism and liberalising trade. Bush flew to Singapore at the start of a three-nation trip seeking to shore up his international standing a week after a stinging defeat in congressional elections seen as a rebuke to his Iraq war policy and a grim omen for the rest of his term. The centrepiece of his travels will be a Pacific Rim economic summit hosted by Vietnam, a former foe turned trading partner. There he will have a chance to bolster a fragile coalition pressing North Korea to curb its nuclear programme.

<B>BAGHDAD. Hostages tortured and killed.</B> Kidnappers who seized dozens of men from a ministry building in Baghdad on Tuesday tortured and killed some of their hostages, the Minister for Higher Education said yesterday, citing the testimony of freed hostages.

“There are a number of people who were killed, they are employees and guards,” Minister Abd Dhiab told Reuters, adding that around 70 hostages had been released out of around 150 staff and visitors originally seized by men in police uniforms.

“According to the people released, they were killed by torture,” Dhiab said, declining to say how many had been killed.

Dhiab, a member of a Sunni Arab party in the Shi'ite-led government, reiterated his determination to boycott the government until all the hostages are released.

<B> GERMANY. Friend of 9/11 hijackers faces harsh sentence.</B> Germany friend of 9/11 hijackers faces harsher sentence Germany’s highest court of appeals ruled yesterday that a Moroccan friend of the September 11 hijackers was guilty of abetting mass murder and must return to court to receive a new, harsher sentence. Mounir El Motassadeq was convicted last year of belonging to a terrorist organisation and given a 7 year jail sentence, but cleared of abetting mass murder. Judge Klaus Tolksdorf overturned that verdict, saying Motassadeq was guilty of the more serious charge, for which he faces a jail sentence of up to 15 years. He will return to a court in Hamburg, where he has been tried on two previous occasions, to receive his new sentence. The Morrocan is one of only a handful of men to have been tried in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Motassadeq’s lawyers have insisted he knew nothing about plans to ram hijacked planes into the US World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They appealed against last year's conviction, saying there was also no proof he belonged to a terrorist organisation.

<B>SUDAN. Rebel accuses government of killings. </B> A rebel group has accused government troops and allied militias of attacking its positions in northern Darfur, killing more than 50 people. An army spokesman denied the claim. Abdel Wahed al-Nur, head of one faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said the army, backed by janjaweed militia, attacked the Deir Mazza area on Wednesday. “About three armed men of the movement were also killed in the attack. The innocent citizens included women and children,” Nur said late on Wednesday, adding that the government used fighter planes. Nur said the attack marked “a massive escalation from the government” and said the SLA would respond. A Sudanese army spokesman who declined to be named said yesterday no operations had been conducted in that area in the past few days and the report was “100 percent incorrect”. Violence is on the increase in Darfur, where some 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million driven from heir homes in a conflict that has raged since 2003.

<B>MANILA, Pacific tsunami alert triggers panic in Philippines. </B>Hundreds of residents of coastal towns in northern and central Philippines evacuated yesterday despite official assurances that there was no threat of a tsunami following a major quake in the north Pacific. Entire villages were abandoned as mobile telephone text messages from people warning of 40-foot (12-metre) waves caused panic among villagers after an estimated 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck 1,700 km (1,000 miles) northeast of Tokyo late on Wednesday. Disaster officials had issued an alert level 2 -– meaning coastal dewellers should be watchful – late on Wednesday after the quake but cancelled the advisory shortly after midnight when no large waves occured. Hundreds of residents remain on higher ground, afraid to go home.