UN-Syria-Lebanon-US The United States said it would consult with allies on a UN Security Council response to a "deeply troubling" UN report implicating senior Syrian officials in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. SAsia NATO approved plans to send up to 1,000 troops to Pakistan as part of a beefed-up package of help for the quake-hit country, after the UN's top aid chief lobbied the alliance to do more to help. Iraq Iraqi police found the body of a lawyer for a co-defendant of Saddam Hussein, shot in the head just days after the first trial against the former dictator opened in Baghdad. US Hurricane Wilma battered deserted resorts along Mexico's Yucatan peninsula with howling winds and torrential rain, toppling trees and power lines. Health China pledged to step up cooperation in an increasingly fierce global battle to contain bird flu as Romania reported a new suspected case and Thailand said a boy had been infected with the virus, which killed his father. SKorea-US The United States and South Korea agreed to accelerate talks on switching the command structure of Korean forces in wartime in what would be a major shift in the half-century-old alliance. Mideast The radical Islamist movement Hamas slammed US President George W. Bush for dropping any concept of a fixed timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state and warned against pressure to disarm "resistance" factions. India-US India and the United States said they were determined to implement a bilateral nuclear deal that breaks precedent on decades of non-proliferation policy. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai condemned the alleged burning of the bodies of two suspected Taliban militants by US soldiers in Afghanistan, and demanded a quick US investigation into the case. Liberia Liberia's "Iron Lady" Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and "King George" Weah will contest a presidential run-off vote on November 8, the National Electoral Commission said after releasing the last of the preliminary results from polls 10 days earlier. Spain-Britain-France Ships of the British, French and Spanish fleets dropped wreaths into the sea on the site where their forebears clashed in the decisive Battle of Trafalgar exactly 200 years before.