In Brief

* WARNED – Jordan’s King Abdullah II vowed to “take the fight” to Iraq-based al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group Jordanian officials said carried out suicide attacks in Amman this week that killed 57 people.

* ANNAN IN IRAQ – UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, making his first visit to Baghdad since the US-led invasion of 2003, appealed for national unity in a country ravaged by a deadly insurgency. * OIL OUTPUT – US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman urged OPEC to take measures to increase production at its next meeting, expressing hope Gulf countries would work hard to expand their output capacity.* RABIN REMEMBERED – More than 200 000 Israelis packed out the Tel Aviv square where a Jewish extremist murdered premier Yitzhak Rabin to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his assassination.* HARIRI MURDER – UN investigators probing the murder of Lebanon’s former billionaire premier Rafiq Hariri have interrogated pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, heightening pressure on the embattled regime in Damascus.* BLAIR ROUGH RIDE – British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted he was facing a rough ride but insisted he would fight on as colleagues gang up against him.* ATTACKED – A French journalist investigating human rights abuses in Tunisia was gassed, beaten and stabbed on the eve of a United Nations information technology summit, his editors said.- Nampa-AFP-Reuters* OIL OUTPUT – US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman urged OPEC to take measures to increase production at its next meeting, expressing hope Gulf countries would work hard to expand their output capacity.* RABIN REMEMBERED – More than 200 000 Israelis packed out the Tel Aviv square where a Jewish extremist murdered premier Yitzhak Rabin to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his assassination.* HARIRI MURDER – UN investigators probing the murder of Lebanon’s former billionaire premier Rafiq Hariri have interrogated pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, heightening pressure on the embattled regime in Damascus.* BLAIR ROUGH RIDE – British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted he was facing a rough ride but insisted he would fight on as colleagues gang up against him.* ATTACKED – A French journalist investigating human rights abuses in Tunisia was gassed, beaten and stabbed on the eve of a United Nations information technology summit, his editors said.- Nampa-AFP-Reuters