Reuters World News Highlights 1400 GMT Nov 12

LONDON - A number of deals designed to cure the global financial crisis were in danger of unravelling on Wednesday, with losses mounting at banks and economies showing further signs of serious deterioration.

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KHARTOUM - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, facing a possible indictment by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur, announced a ceasefire in the region on Wednesday.

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MOSCOW - Russia has rejected U.S. proposals seeking to ease its concerns about a missile defence system that Washington plans to deploy in Europe, local news agencies on Wednesday quoted a Kremlin source as saying.

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MOGADISHU - Islamist rebels captured a port near the Somali capital on Wednesday without firing a shot, giving them their closest foothold to Mogadishu yet and raising the stakes in a two-year insurgency.

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SEOUL - Reclusive North Korea said on Wednesday it would close its land border with the South from next month, largely putting a stop to the few exchanges that exist between the states divided since the Cold War.

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TEHRAN - Iran said it test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missile on Wednesday and that the Islamic Republic was ready to defend itself against any attacker.

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Gunmen killed a U.S. aid official on Wednesday outside his home in Peshawar, police said, the Pakistani city that has borne the brunt of an Islamist insurgency spreading from tribal lands bordering Afghanistan.

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TAIPEI - Former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian was arrested on Wednesday on corruption allegations he brands as persecution by political rivals who have swung the island's approach to China from antagonism to engagement.

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KABUL - Six people were killed and at least 40 wounded in a suicide bomb attack on government buildings in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said, but a brother of the Afghan president who was in one of the offices was unhurt.

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BOSSANGOA - Rebels in the northwest of Central African Republic have killed 14 government soldiers in an ambush near the border with Chad, a regional government official said on Wednesday.