The Secretary-General of the United Nations was forced to duck behind the podium at a press conference in Baghdad today when a suspected rocket attack shook the building he was in and sent debris falling from the ceiling.

Members of a Hamas-led police force clashed on Thursday with gunmen loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction in a second straight day of factional fighting since the formation of a unity government.

British soldiers fired plastic bullets at inmates in a British-run prison in Iraq after several guards were attacked while serving them food, a British military official said on Thursday.