If there is anything that irks the White House more than news from the American consulate in Jerusalem about new West Bank settlements, it is a newspaper report on a new neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Thus when U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's envoy, Yitzhak Molcho, on Monday about a new construction project in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, which is beyond the 1967 lines, Mitchell was hoping to settle the matter quietly.

World leaders at a United Nations food summit in Rome today agreed a strategy to help the world's one billion starving people by increasing aid to farmers in developing countries - but failed to pledge the specific funds the UN had hoped for. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is hosting the three day summit at its Rome headquarters near the Circus Maximus, had asked for a committment of $44 billion (£26.2 bn) a year for agricultural aid. It had also asked summit delegates to make 2025 a deadline for eradicating world hunger altogether.

Gordon Brown has said that British troops cannot stay in Afghanistan forever and will "start coming home" as soon as Afghan forces can secure the country. The Prime Minister also said he was confident that President Barack Obama will soon follow his approach by backing a short-term increase in troop numbers in Afghanistan as part of his new Afghan strategy.

As the United States continues to mourn last week's deadly shooting rampage at a U.S. Army base in Texas, Americans are grappling with disturbing and difficult questions. What provoked the assault that claimed 13 lives at Fort Hood? Could the tragedy have been averted? And what can be done to prevent a similar attack?

The bodies of six UK soldiers - five of whom were shot by a "rogue" Afghan policeman - have passed through the streets of Wootton Bassett in Wilts. Guardsman Jimmy Major, Warrant Officer Darren Chant, Sgt Matthew Telford, Cpl Steven Boote and Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith died in last Tuesday's incident.