EU British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that this week's EU summit was unlikely to resolve the raging row over how the bloc is financed, citing "sharp disagreement" with French President Jacques Chirac over the massive farm budget. US Michael Jackson recovered at his Neverland Ranch after his stunning acquittal on child sex charges, but his lawyer said the pop star would never share his bed with boys again. SAfrica South African President Thabo Mbeki sacked his corruption-tainted deputy Jacob Zuma, who had been tipped to succeed him, saying the move was in the interest of the continent's youngest democracy. Iraq Iraqi violence killed at least 40 people as Kurds in the autonomous north swore in former rebel leader Massoud Barzani as their first president. Mideast The speaker of the Knesset has called for the Israeli parliament to be dissolved and for fresh elections to be held, following government defeats, public radio reported. US US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fended off calls for the closure of the military's prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying it was still needed and he knew of no other alternative to it. US-NKorea China is not using its political and economic muscle to pressure North Korea to reenter multilateral negotiations aimed at ending its nuclear weapons drive, US President George W. Bush's chief negotiator to the talks said. Argentina The Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a blanket amnesty that benefited about 1,000 military staff accused of state terrorism during Argentina's last dictatorship. Iran The frontrunner in the turbulent race for Iran's presidency, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, won high profile support from the oil and nuclear sectors but the election still appeared set to go into a second round. Ethiopia Under heavy international pressure, the Ethiopian government and opposition renewed a pact to peacefully resolve election disputes after deadly clashes rocked the capital last week. Saudi-EU Saudi Arabia has turned down a European Union request to allow full international nuclear inspections, saying it will only agree to special investigations if other countries exempted from them do the same, EU diplomats said. EU Police across Europe swooped down on dozens of locations and arrested more than 20 suspects in a vast operation against an online child pornography network, the largest of its kind ever coordinated by the European police organization, Europol.