World News Highlights at 1001 GMT, Nov 06

CHICAGO - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who will inherit the worst financial crisis in decades when he takes office, is expected to announce his pick for some key economic jobs soon and may reveal his Treasury Secretary selection as early as Thursday.

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SINGAPORE/LONDON - Europe's top central banks were under pressure to slash borrowing costs by a record margin on Thursday as part of global efforts to stimulate trade and commerce and ward off deep recession.

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MOSCOW - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged on Wednesday to station new missiles near Poland's border in response to U.S. plans for an anti-missile system and proposed extending the presidential term to six years from four.

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TAIPEI - Taiwan's president met briefly on Thursday with a Chinese official in one of the highest-level contacts between the two sides since the Chinese civil war, while thousands of protesters clashed with riot police outside.

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CAPE TOWN - South Africa is very concerned by the slow pace of Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks and will take a tough stance over the issue at a summit of regional leaders on Sunday, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

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GAZA - Hamas fired dozens of rockets at Israel on Wednesday after Israeli forces killed six Palestinian militants in an eruption of violence that disrupted a four-month-old truce along the Gaza Strip's frontier.

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HERAT, Afghanistan - U.S.-led troops have killed at least seven civilians in an air strike in northwestern Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday, a day after the president said warplanes had killed 40 civilians in the south.

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MOGADISHU - Gunmen stormed an airstrip in Somalia on Wednesday, kidnapping two Kenyan pilots and four European aid workers in the latest strike against humanitarian organisations in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

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TRUJILLO, Peru - Calls grew for large emerging markets such as China to take a bigger role in running the global financial system as teams from 21 Pacific Rim economies on Wednesday sought to fix broken credit markets.

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THIMPHU - With mediaeval tradition and Buddhist spirituality, a 28-year-old with an Oxford education assumed the Raven Crown of Bhutan on Thursday, to guide the world's newest democracy as it emerges into the modern world.