The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for urgent actions to bring Iraq back from the brink of a full-scale civil war. Speaking at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Mr. Annan said there was a grave danger that the Iraqi state might break down. From the United Nations in New York,Mike Wooldridge reports.

Mr. Annan said Iraq and its leaders were at important crossroads. He said it was absolutely heartbreaking that despite the holding of two elections and the drafting of a new constitution, the everyday life of Iraqi people was dominated by the constant threat of sectarian violence and civil strife. If the current patterns of alienation and violence persisted much longer, Mr. Annan said , there was a grave danger that the Iraqi state would break down, possibly in the midst of a full-scale civil war. Much more needed to be done to bring Iraq back from the brink.

Clashes had broken out in the center of the Hungarian capital Budapest between riot police and demonstrators demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. Hundreds of protestors attempted to storm the headquarters of / State Television. Police held them off with water cannon and tear gas. The protestors in turn have been throwing bottles and cobble stones and setting cars on fire. Several thousand people are thought to be involved.

Pressure is growing on the government of Sudan to allow international forces to protect civilians in the Darfur region where the UN says 200,000 people have been killed in three years of fighting. The mandate of an African Union force currently in Darfur expires at the end of this month and the Sudanese government has rejected a proposed UN force. The UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland says it's critical for the people of Darfur to have security and support on the ground.

It's becoming increasingly urgent and knowing that the African Union forces may leave next month, I think we are very close to a complete meltdown unless we get security support on the ground. At the moment the problem is that the Sudanese government say(s) they don't want any international forces in Darfur. So it's not only the UN which has been blocked, it's even the African Union who is there now.

The Interim President of Somalia Abdullahi Yusuf has been describing how he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, minutes after addressing a meeting of the transitional parliament. President Yusuf told the BBC a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into his convoy in the central town of Baidoa where the interim government is based. The suicide bomber hit a car traveling directly in front of the president. It's not clear who carried out the attack. The Islamist Alliance which controls much of the south of the country including the capital Mogadishu has condemned it. The BBC's Africa editor David Bamford reports.

Somalia's transitional government and its President Abdullahi Yusuf maybe internationally recognized but they hold little political sway outside their home base in the provincial Somali town of Baidoa. And now perhaps no influence there, either. The blast that nearly killed the president went off right outside the gate of the transitional parliament. And this being Somalia, the MPs inside even as they were being covered in dust shaken by the blast from the rafters, carried on their debate as if nothing had happened. Whoever was responsible, the authority of the interim government has been further compromised.

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A public inquiry in Canada has found that mistakes by police led to the deportation of a Syrian born Canadian citizen from the United States to Syria where he says he was tortured. The inquiry was set up to investigate the role Canadian officials played in the deportation of the man, Maher Arar , four years ago, an apparent case of what has become known as extraordinary rendition. It found that it was very likely that Canadian police passed on misleading, inaccurate and unfair information about Mr Arar to the American authorities, but that there was no evidence that Canadian officials participated in the decision to deport him. In his public report on the matter, the Judge Dennis O'Connor cleared Maher Arar of any involvement in terrorism.

I'm able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.

Final preparations are being made in the Pacific Island nation of Tonga for the funeral of King of Taufaahau Topou IV. Thousands of people are taking part in overnight prayer-vigils around the Royal Palace in the capital Nukualofa where the king's body is lying in state. School children have swept the streets and mourners from the country's 170 islands have been visiting the palace to pay all their last respects.