Port of Spain - Obama-mania has struck Trinidad and Tobago like a hurricane - though the Caribbean country is set to host 34 country leaders from across the Americas, residents only seem to care about US President Barack Obama.

"I would like to shake his hand," said Trinidadian Shanti McKenzie.

McKenzie was clad in a T-shirt with Obama's face.

"It's a good thing that he's coming," the woman told dpa, the German news agency. "I wish he was our new prime minister here."

Mexico City  - US President Barack Obama arrived in Mexico Thursday for an overnight visit to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa welcomed Obama at Mexico City's international airport. Obama immediately helicoptered to the presidential residence Los Pinosto to join Calderon.

Regular activity was suspended for 35 minutes at the airport around the landing of Air Force One.

This is the first visit to Mexico City by a US president since then-president Bill Clinton in 1997.

Ljubljana/Vienna - Slovenia's government on Thursday decided to field former diplomat Ernest Petric as a candidate to lead the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), further widening the pool of potential successors to Mohamed ElBaradei.

Petric, 72, serves as a judge on Slovenia's Constitutional Court. He previously represented his country as ambassador to Austria and international organisations in Vienna, including the IAEA.

Trinindad and Tobago - Trinidad and Tobago implemented from Thursday even stricter security measures, ahead of the arrival of leaders from the region including US President Barack Obama to take part in the Summit of the Americas.

Measures include restrictions of the circulation of pedestrians in an area that holds the building where the summit is set to take place as well as the hotels and cruise ships that are hosting participants, delegations and journalists.

Tel Aviv  - United States envoy George Mitchell met with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday in Tel Aviv, the first such meeting since the hardline Israeli government took office on March 31.

Mitchell also held talks with opposition leader Tzipi Livni, with whom he stressed US support for a two-state solution to the Middle Conflict, saying a sustainable peace in the Middle East was in US national interests.

Geneva - A new round of talks between the eight parties involved in the negotiations on last summer's war in Georgia will take place next month, a joint announcment said Thursday

The last round of talks ended without any announcement of further meetings, in contrast to the first three rounds. The talks have been taking place at United Nations offices in Geneva since October 2008.

Little substantive progress has been made on solving the core issues of the conflict and negotiations have mostly focused on day to day security and humanitarian issues.