US: After a weekend strategy session with top aides at Camp David, President George Bush returned to the White House yesterday to begin work on his domestic and international agenda for a second term.
The first major engagement scheduled since his election triumph last week will be a summit meeting on Thursday and Friday in Washington with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which will be dominated by Iraq and the Middle East.
Mr Blair is expected to urge Mr Bush to reassess urgently the prospects for a settlement in his second term after the sidelining of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, which removes the road block caused by Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's refusal to accept Mr Arafat as a partner in negotiations.
Immediately after Mr Bush's re-election, Mr Blair declared that resolving the Middle East conflict was the most important political challenge in the world today, but Mr Bush said only that he agreed with Mr Blair "that the Middle East peace is a very important part of a peaceful world".
Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card accompanied him to Camp David for strategy talks during which Mr Bush asked Mr Card to stay on for a second term, a White House spokesman said.
Other cabinet changes are expected but the military escalation in Iraq almost certainly means that any planned changes in the Pentagon leadership have been put on hold, probably until after January elections in Iraq.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld briefed the president yesterday morning on the fierce battle for control of the city of Falluja which began just before noon, Washington time.
On domestic issues, Mr Bush returns to work to find the US capital awash with rumours that illness will force the imminent resignation of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, who is receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatment for thyroid cancer.
With the strengthening of the Republican majority in the 100-member Senate to 55, Mr Bush is expected to nominate a strongly-conservative judge to the first vacancy in the Supreme Court in ten years.
Mr Bush said during his election campaign that he would pick somebody "who knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law", a definition he has used to describe conservative judicial appointments in the first term - 10 of which were blocked by Democrats.
Republican Senator Arlen Specter, a moderate who had been expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, warned Mr Bush last week against nominating justices who would provoke a filibuster from angry Democrats that would need 60 votes to overcome.
This created a furore among conservative Republicans, who accused the pro-choice Pennsylvania senator of planning to impose a litmus test on nominees requiring support of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that enforces a woman's right to choose. Opponents of abortion sent thousands of e-mails and telephone calls over the weekend to Senate majority leader Bill Frist. Mr Specter said he had never applied a test, but his prospects of getting the judicial committee chair is in doubt.