SUDAN

The world will find it hard to get U.N.-led climate talks back on track in Mexico in 2010 after an unambitious deal agreed in Copenhagen set no firm deadline for a legally binding treaty.

A U.N. climate meeting in Copenhagen committed on Saturday to try and complete its work on agreeing a new global pact by the end of 2010.

This diary is updated daily. New listings or amendments are marked *. All events/times provisional and in GMT (local time is GMT +2 for Egypt and Sudan).

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.

Stocks fell on Tuesday, with the Dow and S&P 500 moving off 14-month highs, as a climb in producer prices raised inflation concerns and economic bellwether General Electric issued a flat outlook for 2010.

A clutch of major emerging economies including China and India have forged a united front to put pressure on developed countries at next month's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

The United Nations called on richer governments on Monday to provide a total of $7.1 billion in 2010 to fund urgent humanitarian assistance for 48 million people in 25 countries.

The world's first permanent war crimes court opens its second trial on Tuesday when two Congolese warlords face charges they ordered subordinates to attack civilians, rape women and enlist child soldiers.

Khartoum's U.N. envoy, rejecting a bleak U.N. assessment of the situation in Sudan's conflict-torn western Darfur region, said on Monday it was time for international peacekeepers to prepare to leave.

Algeria took the final spot in the 2010 World Cup African qualifiers list after beating Egypt 1-0 in Khartoum, Sudan.

New Zealand was on Wednesday named the world's least corrupt nation out of a list of 180 countries, unseating Denmark after a year in which the global recession and ongoing conflicts proved challenging.

About 40 world leaders plan to go to Copenhagen next month to boost the chances of clinching a U.N. climate deal, the United Nations said Friday as preparatory talks wound down with scant progress.

Two Iranian businessmen working at a Dubai-based firm were linked to video surveillance devices sold to Sudan and used in unmanned drones in Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, a U.N. report said.

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul accused the European Union on Friday of interfering after the bloc asked Ankara to reconsider a decision to invite indicted Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to an Islamic summit.

Climate negotiators prepared to ditch a December deadline for agreeing a new pact as U.N. talks in Barcelona drew to a close on Friday with little progress made.

Suspected Taliban militants shot and killed a Pakistani army brigadier and his driver in the capital on Thursday as the military continued a major offensive against the insurgents in their strongholds near the Afghan border.

The Obama administration on Monday said it would renew economic sanctions on Sudan, but also offered Khartoum new incentives to end violence in Darfur and the semi-autonomous south ahead of crucial polls next year.

Two Darfur aid workers held captive on a harsh mountaintop on the remote Sudan-Chad border for 107 days said they felt anger at mock assassinations by their captors but clung to the hope they would be released.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday unveiled a new strategy toward Sudan, offering incentives if the Khartoum government worked toward peace, but said it faced tougher steps if it failed to act.

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said on Monday Sudanese Darfur rebel leader Bahr Idriss Abu Garda deliberately ordered the killing of 12 African Union peacekeepers, leaving civilians unprotected.

The World Bank unveiled its $215 million Central African Backbone program on Tuesday, to bring reliable, high-speed, low-cost internet access to the region for the first time.