Ankara - Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on Friday expressed optimism that long-running disputes between Turkey and Armenia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan can be resolved and that Turkey was determined to push forward in the interests of regional peace.

"These two tracks could move fast because there is good political will," Babacan said at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Istanbul.

Berlin - Ultrasound checks have discovered a second axle in Germany's bullet-train fleet contains a tiny crack that some safety experts fear could have widened into a break and caused a rail disaster.

The Deutsche Bahn company, which has halted operations by dozens of ICE high-speed trains for checks, disclosed the discovery Friday after the company's chief executive, Hartmut Mehdorn, said an "anomaly" had been found.

The first such crack deeper than the safety limit of 2 millimetres was discovered in a drive axle in mid-October.

Brussels - Europe and the United States should push for international intervention in third countries to prevent conflict, a European Union briefing paper says.

The paper on future EU-US relations, drawn up by the French presidency of the EU, is due to be discussed by the bloc's foreign ministers Monday, the eve of the US presidential election.

It is intended to help the EU set up a "minimum common platform" of principles which each member state will use in dealing with the next US president, the text's preamble says.

Cologne, Germany - Women and children caught up in the fighting in eastern Congo are in urgent need of help, the UN Children's Fund UNICEF said Friday.

More than a quarter-of-a-million refugees had fled the fighting in recent days between the Congolese army and rebels under the leadership of General Laurent Nkunda.

Many children had been separated from their parents, making them

more vulnerable to abuse, UNICEF said. There was also a danger of young boys being forcibly recruited by armed groups when they are displaced.

Lusaka, Zambia - Partial results from Zambia's presidential by-election Friday showed opposition leader Michael Sata leading acting president Rupiah Banda with 
60 out of 150 constituencies counted.

Sata, who was defeated for president in 2001 and 2006, had 407,639 votes, against 317,558 for Banda, candidate of the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy.

Nairobi - Kenya was on a heightened terror alert Friday after recent suicide bombings in neighbouring Somalia and the arrest Thursday in Nairobi of a man carrying what were believed to be detonators.

Five suicide bombs in the breakaway Somali regions of Somaliland and Puntland killed at least 26 people Wednesday.

Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the fact that the bombings took place as Somali leaders were meeting with regional heads of state in Kenya at the same time had raised fears in Kenya.