Amman - Jordan's King Abdullah II held his second meeting in less than a week on Wednesday with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to review the outcome of efforts exerted so far to try to stop further Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

The meeting at the Red Sea resort of Aqaba took place a few hours before the arrival of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was due to hold separate talks with the two Arab leaders in the course of a regional tour.

Tel Aviv - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will travel to Paris Thursday to debate the crisis in Gaza with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon, a senior adviser said.

The adviser, Yigal Palmor, said they would discuss "different ideas about what can be done on the diplomatic level" - but not a French proposal for a 48-hour humanitarian truce in Gaza, which Israel has rejected.

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI in his annual New Year's Eve address on Wednesday urged people to shun egoism in their lives and to show "solidarity and sobriety" to help address the world's ills.

"If everyone thinks only about himself, then the world will go to ruin," the head of the Roman Catholic Church said. In remarks above all aimed at the world's youth, he said today's times provided the "opportunity to do good."

Washington - US President George W Bush telephoned Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday in an attempt to ease tensions following the November terrorist attack in Mumbai.

Bush urged both sides to cooperate in fighting terrorism and called on Zardari to do the same in helping India investigate the November 26 attacks that left more than
170 people dead.

Geneva  - UBS and Credit Suisse, Switzerland largest banks, made two large deals Wednesday to close off what were bad years for both.

UBS AG announced in a statement that it has sold approximately 3.4 billion of its shares in Bank of China Ltd. to institutional investors.

The second largest bank, Credit Suisse, said it agreed to sell part of its Global Investors asset management business to Aberdeen Asset Management in return for stock worth 361 million dollars, giving it an almost 25 per cent holding in the company.

The sale comes with 70 billion dollars of assets under management.