Berlin - Germany wants to develop relations with Mongolia, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday after talks with Mongolian Prime Minister Sanj Bayar in Berlin.

She told a news conference there was scope for expanding economic ties with the resource-rich Central Asian nation.

Bayar, who earlier met Economics Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, said his visit to Germany also included talks with German business leaders in the steel, banking and rail sectors.

Brussels  - Turkey must make sure it protects the freedom of the press, the head of the European Union's executive told Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Thursday.

"Full respect of press freedom is an important value for us. It is important that there be full respect of this basic, fundamental right," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said as he welcomed Gul on the first-ever visit to the EU's headquarters by a Turkish head of state.

Nairobi/Kinshasa - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday called for a new momentum for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a speech to lawmakers in the central African nation.

Sarkozy, who travelled with a delegation of ministers and business representatives, said that there was a need to unite various rebel factions and regional governments in order to avoid further chaos.

Rebel groups have in recent years continued to cause trouble in the east of DR Congo, with last year seeing a flare-up in fighting that displaced over 250,000 people.

Mexico City  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon is to meet with Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and several British politicians and legislators during a state visit to Britain prior to the G20 summit next week in London.

"President Calderon will have an intense work agenda which includes meetings with the most relevant actors in political life of the United Kingdom," the Mexican president's office said Wednesday in a statement.

Mexico City  - On her first visit to Mexico, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Wednesday emphasized that Washington was prepared to help shoulder the responsibility alongside Mexico for fighting the increasingly violent drug cartels south of the US border.

Before her meeting with President Felipe Calderon, Clinton remarked to reporters that the "insatiable demand" for illegal drugs in the US feeds the drug violence and trade. Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa joined the talks.

Washington  - China's military transformation has intensified in recent years as it acquires more advanced weaponry and technologies to conduct nuclear, space and cyber warfare, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The Chinese military buildup poses troubling questions because Beijing has not clarified its intentions and does not publicly reveal all of its defence spending, the Pentagon annual report to Congress said.