World News Highlights 0600 GMT, Nov 10

SINGAPORE - China pitched in nearly $600 billion to the global effort to avoid the worst economic downturn in decades, while grim Japanese data on Monday offered more proof of the damage caused by the global financial crisis.

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WASHINGTON - The economic crisis will not stop President-elect Barack Obama from expanding health care, overhauling education and energy policy, and passing a middle-class tax cut soon after he takes office in January, senior aides said on Sunday.

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JOHANNESBURG - Southern African countries are willing to send a peacekeeping force to try to help stabilise the eastern Congo, an official of the SADC regional grouping said on Sunday.

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VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Twenty people were killed on board a Russian nuclear submarine, the navy said on Sunday, in an accident that exposed the gap between the Kremlin's ambitions and its military capability.

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BEIJING - A strong earthquake measuring 6.5 hit a sparsely populated area in China's western province of Qinghai on Monday, shaking buildings in the remote mining city of Golmud and the regional capital, Xining.

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WELLINGTON - New Zealand Prime Minister-elect John Key began talks on Monday with his allies, hoping to form a government by the end of the week to start work on pulling the country out of recession.

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BRUSSELS - European Union foreign ministers will discuss on Monday the possible restart of negotiations on a wide-ranging partnership accord with Russia that were frozen after Moscow sent troops into Georgia.

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TENGGULUN, Indonesia - Three Indonesian militants executed on Sunday for the 2002 Bali bombings were buried by their families at ceremonies attended by thousands of supporters shouting "Allahu akbar" .

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TBILISI - Georgia accused South Ossetian security forces of occupying a Georgian village outside the borders of the breakaway territory on Sunday, drawing warnings from EU officials monitoring a ceasefire.

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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt - The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators sought on Sunday to keep alive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks although political uncertainty in Israel has scotched hopes for a deal this year.