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World News Highlights 0600 GMT Nov 24

Published: 24 Nov 2008 01:22:24 PST

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Treasury Department announced late on Sunday it was investing $20 billion in struggling Citigroup Inc as one of a series of actions to help the beleaguered bank and it will take preferred shares in it.

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BANGKOK - Thailand's parliament postponed an important legislative session on Monday after thousands of protesters besieged the compound in their latest bid to unseat the elected administration.

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LIMA - The United States, China, Japan and 18 other economies in Asia and the Americas promised fast and decisive action on Sunday to prevent a severe global economic downturn.

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SEOUL - North Korea on Monday said that it would go ahead with its threat to effectively close the land border with the South, including expelling South Korean managers from an industrial site just inside its border, from Dec. 1.

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CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's left-wing party won most state races in elections on Sunday, shoring up his dominance in much of the OPEC nation, but the opposition scored victories in important power centres.

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RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday he would call for elections in 2009 if his secular Fatah movement and its Islamist rivals Hamas do not reconcile by the end of this year.

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LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown tries to kickstart the stalling British economy on Monday, spending billions of borrowed pounds on tax cuts in a bid to stop a recession turning into a slump.

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BISSAU - Guinea-Bissau's President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira survived an attack by renegade soldiers early on Sunday, two days after the results of parliamentary elections were rejected by an opposition leader.

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BAGHDAD - Iraq will not seek to extend the U.N. mandate of U.S. troops and they will pull out immediately if Iraqi parliament fails to approve a pact allowing them to stay until 2011, Iraq's prime minister said on Sunday.

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TEL AVIV - An Israeli court jailed eight Jewish teenagers on Sunday for carrying out neo-Nazi attacks in a case that sparked revulsion in a state that was a haven for Jews after the Holocaust.