BEIJING  — A top U.S. envoy on Sunday urged China to be more open about its military spending, hours after the government announced a 17.8 percent increase in its defense budget — the biggest in more than a decade.

The $44.9 billion budget for 2007 would mainly be spent on higher wages and living allowances for members of the armed forces and on upgrading armaments “in order to enhance the military’s ability to conduct defensive operations,” said Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for China’s national legislature. China’s 2.3 million-strong military is the world’s largest.

The Pentagon believes China’s total military spending may be much greater since the announced budget does not include key items such as weapons purchases.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, visiting Beijing on Sunday, urged more dialogue between the Pentagon and the Chinese military. Negroponte’s stance underscored remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney, who criticized China’s military ambitions last month while on a swing through Asia. He said some of the country’s actions were at odds with its words about its military expansion being peaceful, pointing to a January test in which China fired a missile into a defunct weather satellite, making it just the third nation to use a weapon beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.

South America

Chavez: U.S. diplomat is ‘professional killer’

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he believes enemies including the CIA are out to kill him, and called U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a “professional killer.”

Chavez said Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.

He said the death plot idea has “gained weight” due to various factors, including the recent appointment of Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence, as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“Who did they swear in ... there at the White House as deputy secretary of state? A professional killer: John Negroponte,” Chavez said.

U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but they have denied Chavez’s repeated accusations that they are plotting to oust him.

Africa

Peace accord in Ivory Coast

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Ivory Coast’s president signed a peace accord with the country’s main rebel leader Sunday calling for a new government to hold elections by the year’s end, and for the dismantling of a vast buffer zone separating the two sides.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro agreed to form a new unity government within five weeks and create a new joint military command that would include rebel and army officials.

Ivory Coast, the world’s leading cocoa producer, has been split between a loyalist south and a rebel-held north since insurgents began the war in September 2002 in the main city, Abidjan.

About 9,000 U.N. troops and 4,000 French soldiers are deployed in Ivory Coast helping to ward off all-out civil war. Many patrol a giant buffer zone that runs east to west, dividing the country in half. The demilitarized zone separates the two sides by dozens of miles, with roadside U.N. checkpoints on both ends.

Center-right party wins in Estonia

TALLINN, Estonia — The party of Estonia’s prime minister, who pledged to preserve the market-friendly policies credited with the Baltic nation’s impressive growth, narrowly won parliamentary elections Sunday, official preliminary results showed.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s center-right Reform Party had 27.8 percent of the votes, ahead of the left-leaning Center Party led by political veteran Edgar Savisaar, which had 26.1 percent, the Electoral Committee said, with nearly all districts counted.

An EU and NATO member since 2004, Estonia is known for its Internet technology and is the hub of the online telephony company Skype. But the country grapples with some of the EU’s worst health problems, including high rates of alcoholism, HIV infection and traffic-related deaths.

The former Soviet republic is also struggling to integrate its Russian-speaking minority — about one-third of the population — which often complains of discrimination.