Saudi Saudi Arabia said it would hike oil output capacity to 11 million barrels per day in a bid to curb prices which have soared above the 50-dollar-a-barrel mark as traders took fright at supply threats, including unrest in Nigeria and recent hurricane damage. Nigeria An armed group in Nigeria accused of trafficking in illegally extracted crude has threatened to attack international oil facilities and personnel in the Niger Delta, a regional government spokesman said. Iraq An Egyptian hostage was freed in Iraq as two British soldiers were killed in a flare-up of violence in the south of the country and US warplanes again pounded the rebel-held Sunni stronghold of Fallujah. France King Abdullah of Jordan held talks on the Middle East with President Jacques Chirac after warning in a newspaper interview that elections in Iraq are impossible in the current state of insecurity. US President George W. Bush sharpened his jabs against Democratic challenger John Kerry, who has called for an end to the nasty advertising war that he said was scaring off voters only days before the rivals' first televised debate. Thailand The World Health Organisation confirmed that it was examining a "probable" first full case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu in Thailand, raising fears of a deadly global flu pandemic. Pakistan Pakistani security agencies have arrested 11 Islamic militants since killing Amjad Farooqi, the alleged mastermind of bids to kill both President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, an official said. Britain British Prime Minister Tony Blair goes before his own Labour Party to encourage its rank and file to look beyond the Iraq war and aim for a third term in power in elections likely to be held next year. South Korea South Korean officials dismissed as propaganda a top North Korean official's claims that Pyongyang had made nuclear weapons from spent plutonium fuel rods, news reports said. Lebanon After overnight riots, thousands of Lebanese staged a protest over the death in custody of a suspected Al-Qaeda leader arrested for alleged bomb plots against Western embassies. Sweden Families of the victims of the 1994 sinking of the "Estonia" car ferry in the Baltic Sea marked the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, calling for a new investigation into the cause of Europe's worst post-war maritime disaster. Nepal Nine suspected Maoist rebels were gunned down and a bomb ripped through a bank in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu as a guerrilla strike shut shops and transport in much of the Himalayan kingdom.