Brussels  - The French presidency of the European Union agreed Tuesday to scale back its ambitious 11-point plan on reforming global capitalism amid concerns that calls for a "global economic government" would encroach on national sovereignties.

The French proposal is meant to kickstart discussions on a common EU position ahead of a global financial summit due to take place in Washington on November 15.

At a preparatory meeting in Brussels, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said fellow EU ministers had shown "massive support" for the presidency's document, which outlines a series of key changes to the way global capitalism should be run.

Islamabad - Thirteen Taliban militants and three security personnel were killed Tuesday in aerial strikes by government forces and attacks by Islamist insurgents in north-west Pakistan, officials and media reports said.

A suicide bomber ploughed his explosive-laden car into a security wall around an army post, located in Doaba town in the restive Hangu district of North West Frontier Province.

Nairobi, Goma  - A United Nations aid convoy taking supplies behind rebel lines in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not enough to meet the needs of desperate refugees, aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain displaced after rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's forces routed the Congolese army and came within reach of taking the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week.

Warsaw- Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Tuesday criticised President Lech Kaczysnki over a joint statement with Lithuania opposing a resumption of EU negotiations with Russia.

Sikorski said Kaczynski's joint statement issued late Monday with Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus had not been cleared with the Polish government beforehand. Sikorski said he had only learned about the document from his Lithuanian colleague at the current EU foreign ministers' meeting in Marseille.

Wednesday Nairobi/Kogelo - US presidential favourite Barack Obama's Kenyan family were gathering for an election night party in the western village of Kogelo Tuesday as US voters went to the polls.

Around 20 family members had shown up at the senator's ancestral home in Kogelo, where his grandmother Sarah Obama still lives.

Journalists and well-wishers were locked out of the Obama household as the party got under way.

Rio de Janeiro - British driver Lewis Hamilton, the youngest-ever Formula 1 world champion, said in Brazil that he would have supported Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, if he could vote in Tuesday's elections in the United States.

"I wish both candidates the best, but I really like Obama, and if I were (a citizen of) the United States I would have done my best to help him," the McLaren driver said, in comments that the Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo published Tuesday.

Obama is seeking to become the first-ever black president of the United States.