LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Sunday he wanted to set President Hamid Karzai a series of three-monthly targets so that international forces can start to hand over control of Afghanistan.

VIENNA (AFP) - UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who once described himself as a "nuclear pope", quoted the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in his farewell remarks at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) - Global climate talks to be held in Copenhagen got a big boost on the weekend when leaders representing a third of the planet's population put their full weight behind sealing a deal.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military will deploy up to 9,000 Marines to Afghanistan's Helmand province -- doubling US presence there -- in the days after President Barack Obama's war strategy announcement this week, the Washington Post said Saturday.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is backing the announcement of a summit to be held in London in January to discuss Afghanistan.

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) - Commonwealth leaders representing two billion people on Saturday threw their combined weight behind upcoming climate talks, driving momentum towards a new carbon-cutting treaty.

Britain aims to set clear goals in Afghanistan at top-level talks next year to move towards bringing its troops home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says.

Papua New Guinea has criticised the US's "irresponsible" and "unacceptable" climate change policy at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) - Britain aims to set clear goals in Afghanistan at top-level talks next year to move towards bringing its troops home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday amid public anger at the war.

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Britain will host talks on Afghanistan on January 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday, just days before U.S. President Barack Obama spells out his expansion of the war effort next week.

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Britain will host talks on Afghanistan on January 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday, just days before U.S. President Barack Obama sets out his expansion of the war effort next week.

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - A major international conference on Afghanistan, to be held in London in January, will aim to set the conditions for a gradual transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan control, Britain said on Saturday.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan announced a pay rise of nearly 40 percent for police and military recruits on Saturday, as Western countries aim to increase the size and quality of Afghan security forces so their own troops can go home.

Hopes for a new global climate pact have risen after rich nations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago offered to help poorer countries bear the costs of implementing any deal.

Hopes rose that a new global climate pact was within reach after rich nations at a Commonwealth summit offered to help poorer countries bear the costs.

The two aspiring reality TV stars who gatecrashed a state dinner this week met US President Barack Obama at the event, a new White House photograph shows.

PM Kevin Rudd says "political will" exists to approve a climate change deal at the Copenhagen UN summit, despite his own legislation being bogged in the Senate.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The two aspiring reality TV stars who gatecrashed a state dinner this week met President Barack Obama at the event, a White House photograph showed.