New York, Aug 5: Former US president Bill Clinton, whose role in Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama's election campaign remains to be worked out, is still far away from saying that Obama was ready to don the mantle of US President.

He said that even if one holds the office of the country’s Vice-president for eight years, it’s not sure that he would be ready to take on the pressures of the Office of US President.

Sydney - Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe will not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics because he was told by China's Communist Party to stay away, the Sydney Morning Herald daily reported on Tuesday.

Citing sources, the paper said that "high-powered lobbying from political leaders who will be attending the ceremony prompted the highest levels of the Chinese Government to convince him not to attend."

Washington  - The United States Monday warned that Iran would face new Security Council sanctions if it did not accept an offer of fresh talks and incentives to end its nuclear activities.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana was set to receive a response from Iran Tuesday to a July 19 proposal, which offered far-reaching economic cooperation with Iran in return for a pledge from Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

Washington - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called on the United States to end its dependence on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela within
10 years as part of a broad speech laying out his energy plans on Monday.

Obama, who celebrated his 47th birthday Monday, said he would direct the "full resources" of government towards promoting renewable energy sources, investing 150 billion dollars over the 10-year period.

Moscow  - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia should restore Soviet-era alliances with Cuba, news agencies reported.

"We need to rebuild position in Cuba and other countries," Putin said during a meeting with his deputy Igor Sechin on his return from talks in Havana.

The head of Russia's federal security services Nikolai Patrushev was also part of the delegation seeking to extend trade and military cooperation.

Cairo  - Iraqi and US teams negotiating a controversial security pact have reached an initial agreement that states that US troops will withdraw from Iraq between 2010 and 2011, the pro- government Iraqi Al-Sabah newspaper reported Monday.

The newspaper reported that "the Iraqi and American technical teams have already reported the outcome of their negotiations to their political leaders during the past days."