Berlin  - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier found Iran uncooperative during nuclear talks Monday in Berlin and called on Tehran to stop playing for time with the West and act to restore lost trust, German delegation sources said

Aides described Steinmeier as disappointed after the talks about Iran's nuclear programme.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had requested the meeting, according to the German account.

Vienna  - Iran is continuing to expand its uranium enrichment programme while obfuscating UN efforts to verify the nature of the country's nuclear ambitions, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also said that the agency had new information relating to past Iranian nuclear weapons-related studies, but had had no cooperation from the latter in clarifying their details.

Islamabad, Sept. 13: Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that his government can and will take up the issue of unilateral American missile strikes with the Bush administration, but ruled out the possibility of engaging the United States in a war.

"We can take up the matter of unilateral strikes in Pakistan at diplomatic level, but cannot wage war," Gilani told newsmen at Prime Minister Secretariat on Friday after inaugurating the country's first plant for manufacturing of auto disposable syringes.

Washington  - Relations between the United States and Venezuela reached their lowest point in years on Friday after a flurry of diplomatic tit-for-tats, featuring expulsions of ambassadors and some of the harshest words yet between the two sides.

The crisis began earlier in the week then Bolivian President Evo Morales, a leftist ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, accused the US ambassador of fomenting opposition to his leadership and ordered the American envoy out of the country.

Warsaw  - Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski met his Belarusian counterpart on Friday and spoke about the country's ties to the European Union, local media reported.

Sikorski met with Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov to discuss border security, transport of goods and cooperation on energy issues, the Polish Foreign Ministry said.

Sikorski said while Belarus doesn't aspire towards European Union membership, it wants to draw closer to the EU as its valuable market.

Washington  - US President George W Bush will meet with a host of foreign leaders in Washington this month surrounding the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Bush's first meeting will be with Kuwait's Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah on September 19, the White House said Friday.

Bush then plans to host Lebanese Prime Minister Michel Suleiman at the White House on September 25 and the following day will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the troubling security situation in his country.