Lima - Peruvian Police colonel Oswaldo Alfaro, who was to be in charge of security at the 16th summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, was removed from the job a week before the gathering that is set to be held in Lima, Peruvian media reported Friday.

New Interior Minister Remigio Hernani was said to have removed Alfaro along with all other officials with ties to former head of police Octavio Salazar, a personal rival whom he has already dismissed.

Amsterdam - Dutch integration minister Ella Vogelaar's resignation on Thursday highlights a shift to the right on the topic of migrant policy by the Dutch Labour Party.

Undoubtedly, Vogelaar's poor communication skills, painfully exposed by the Dutch media since her tenure began in February 2007, contributed to the fact her own party ousted her. But in the end it was a difference on migrant issues that sparked her departure.

Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Friday said it would not participate in a government of national unity with President Robert Mugabe unless he met the party's conditions for sharing power.

Addressing journalists in Harare after a key party meeting, MDC vice president Thokozani Khupe said the MDC would not govern together with Mugabe unless the constitution was first amended to enshrine party leader Morgan Tsvangirai's powers as prime minister.

Nice, France - A row over US and Russian plans to site missiles in Europe, the global financial crisis and European Union diplomacy in Georgia topped the agenda Friday when EU and Russian leaders met in the French resort of Nice.

"There should be no (missile) deployment in any enclave until we have discussed the new geo-political terms for pan-European security ... until then, please let's not talk about the deployment of missile shields," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a double-barrelled blast at Russia and the US.

Sarkozy currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU.

Madrid - Prosecutors at Spain's National Court on Friday requested the arrest of five suspected members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA on suspicion of exchanging information on military tactics with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The whereabouts of the five were unknown. Press reports said they had fled to Cuba and Venezuela.

Documents seized from ETA and FARC provided evidence of the contacts and collaboration, the prosecutors said.

Frankfurt - The world's leading central banks are ready to take more steps to stabilize global markets if need be, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said Friday.

He said continuing volatility and recent economic indicators show that there are challenges ahead. Bernanke was in Germany to attend a conference sponsored by the European Central Bank to review the history of the euro.