Nuremberg, Germany - German talks on boosting government spending to offset recession are to continue through the weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday.

Pump-priming is planned by a broad range of western countries as world gloom spreads.

Merkel said, "It's important that such an ambitious plan fits in with the measures by other nations."

Speaking in Nuremberg, she noted that a G20 summit she is to attend in Washington on November 15 would also review how to boost the economies of the emerging markets.

Islamabad - At least 20 people, including an al-Qaeda operative, were killed Friday by a missile launched from a suspected US drone in a Pakistan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.

"A US pilotless aircraft fired two guided missiles on the house of a person named Amanullah in the village of Asori in the Mir Ali sub- district of North Waziristan," said an intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

New York - A UN General Assembly committee adopted Friday a draft arms trade treaty, the first step in efforts to control the sale of weapons around the world worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a British diplomat said.

The assembly's political committee, known as the First Committee, adopted 145-2 the draft treaty, which would go through more rounds of talks before a final vote by the 
192-nation assembly that would make it a binding treaty. The draft had been under negotiations for three years.