US Hurricane Wilma pounding Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula weakened and was downgraded to a category three storm packing sustained winds of 205 kilometers (125 miles) an hour, the US National Hurricane Center said after sea water rushed into the Mexican resort city of Cancun. UN The United States led calls for action against Syria after a UN investigator implicated top Syrian officials in the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. Croatia The European Commission said it was preparing to ban imports of live poultry and poultry products from Croatia after the discovery of the bird flu virus on samples taken from swans in the country. Egypt At least three people have been killed and around 60 injured in violent clashes between Muslims and police in Alexandria amid mounting tensions in the Egypt's Mediterranean city over a Christian video considered anti-Islamic, the interior ministry said. Iraq Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa said he had received the support of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for the League's mission to foster national dialogue and ease sectarian tension in Iraq. Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari ruled out a transfer of Saddam Hussein's trial to another country, rejecting calls from defense counsels who mooted the move after the murder of a lawyer. Iraq A makeshift bomb killed a policeman south of Baghdad, while mortar fire targeted northern and western areas in the capital, injuring another, an interior ministry source said. SAsia United Nations aid chiefs painted the grimmest picture yet of survivors' needs two weeks after Pakistan's massive quake, warning that time was the scarcest commodity before winter comes. SAsia The World Bank will significantly increase aid to Pakistan to help reconstruct regions devastated by the October 8 earthquake, its president Paul Wolfowitz said here Saturday. Mideast Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas said that an independent Palestinian state could be ready by the end of President George W. Bush's term in January 2009 -- although Bush now refuses to set a deadline. US In the clearest indication to date that criminal charges against top White House officials may be in the offing, the special prosecutor investigating the CIA leak case has unveiled his own Web site -- one week before his probe was scheduled to wrap up. afp