International

By SPA United Nations : United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned attacks in Sri Lanka on Wednesday that came as a ceasefire agreement between the government and separatist rebels officially ended. In attacks in Colombo, the country’s capital, included the bombing of a civilian bus. Rebels for the so-called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) reportedly gunned down victims fleeing the scene. In a statement, Ban said “the only way to stop further violence in Sri Lanka is through dialogue.”

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Encouraging Russians to continue working after retirement can be an alternative to raising the retirement age, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

By DPA, New York : As Washington openly debated help for the beleaguered automobile industry, shares of General Motors plunged as much as 31 percent Monday as a Deutsche Bank AG analyst speculated the shares may be worthless in a year. "Even if GM succeeds in averting a bankruptcy, we believe that the company's future path is likely to be bankruptcy-like," Deutsche Bank's Rod Lache was quoted by Bloomberg financial news service as saying.

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By IRNA London : The EU should abandon its biofuels targets because they are damaging the environment, an all-party group of British MPs warned Monday. The Environmental Audit Committee said biofuels are ineffective at cutting greenhouse gases and can be expensive. Problematic emissions from cars can be cut more cheaply and with lower environmental risk, it said. "Biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from road transport - but at present most biofuels have a detrimental impact on the environment overall," committee chairman Tim Yeo said.

Bangkok : Thai coup leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha Friday said elections in the country are expected to be held after at least 15 months...

By Xinhua, Hanoi : Australia will help train senior members of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in fighting corruption, Wednesday's Vietnamese newspaper Yong People quoted visiting Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith as saying. Australia would provide up to 500,000 U.S. dollars to support at raining program for Vietnamese senior officials to strengthen Vietnam's corruption prevention, detection and enforcement efforts, he said.

By IANS, London : Britons thronged high streets and shopping malls across a nation facing a recession in what commentators said was the busiest Boxing Day sales in living memory. Shoppers began queuing up for bargains at 5 a.m. Friday as major stores slashed prices by up to 90 percent, making light of predictions by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) that the British economy could shrink by more than 2.5 percent next year - the biggest slump since 1946. According to one newspaper, sales were expected to touch an astonishing one million pounds a minute Friday.

By Xinhua, Yangon : A minor part of the daily life started to resume in Myanmar's former capital of Yangon Sunday, the first day in the aftermath of the deadly cyclone Nargis strike the country for 10 hours from Saturday night to Saturday noon. Yangon residents began to move about mostly on foot as few number of public buses could run as such huge vehicles find impossible to fight their ways through roads densely blocked by the Nargis-triggered fallen trees and its long and thick branches.

By DPA, Washington : Seven passengers died when a light aircraft crashed in the state of Minnesota Thursday, US aviation authorities confirmed. The small plane, operated by the East Coast Jet air taxi service, crashed at the end of a runway while trying to land in the city of Owatonna, said Diane Spitaliere, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. There were reports of severe weather in the region, Spitaliere said. The plane departed from Atlantic City, New Jersey.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Joseph Alliluyev, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's grandson and son of his daughter Svetlana, has died in Moscow. Alliluyev died Sunday, media reported, without specifying the cause of the death. Alliluyev, born in 1945, was the only grandson of Stalin to have met him. He worked as a cardiologist publishing over 150 papers on heart disease and kept a low profile throughout his life, never giving interviews. Svetlana Alliluyeva, aged 82, Stalin's only daughter, defected to the United States in 1967 and is now a US citizen.

By IANS,

By IANS, Toronto : Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien has eulogised China as the next superpower and criticised the current government for irking Beijing by honouring Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Chretien, who was Canada's prime minister from 1993 to 2003, also said that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had committed a blunder by not attending the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony. Speaking at the Canadian Bar Association in Quebec City Sunday, he said the current government had failed to understand China's importance as the world's biggest economy.

By Prensa Latina, Havana : An Ethiopian government delegation is to start Monday a series of meetings with Cuban counterparts to foster economic, scientific and technical collaboration between both nations. Ethiopian Finance and Economic Development Minister Mekonnen Manyazewal leads his country's delegation that will participate until Thursday in the Fifth session of the Intergovernmental Commission. Manyazewal's agenda here includes meeting with Cuban officials in the capital's Ministry for Foreign Investments and Economic Collaboration.

By IANS, London : A therapy developed by Liverpool University and Pakistani scientists will be a boon to millions of depressed women in developing countries. The impact of depression - a major health problem world-wide - is the greatest in developing countries where 80 percent of the population live, according to experts. Atif Rahman of School of Population, Community and Behavioural Sciences, helped develop the programme while working as a Wellcome Trust Career Fellow in Tropical Medicine in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

By IANS,

By RIA Novosti Beijing : China may raise its defense spending by almost 20% to $58.7 billion in 2008, a National People's Congress (NPC) spokesman said on Tuesday as Taiwan prepared for a crucial vote on its future. "China's State Council will submit a proposal to a NPC session to consider the approval of 417.8 billion yuan in defense spending for the country in 2008," Jiang Enzhu told a news briefing ahead of a NPC legislative session due to start on Wednesday.

By NNN-IRIN Colombo : The first six weeks of this year have been some of the deadliest for civilians since the fighting between Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) intensified in December 2005. More than 180 civilians were killed and almost 270 injured in attacks on buses, at the country’s busiest railway station in the capital Colombo and elsewhere during the first 42 days of 2008, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement.

By Prensa Latina Athens : Unidentified men attacked a police station with fire bombs in the outskirts of the Greek capital on Saturday. The target of the attack was the police station in Pefki. Four police vehicles and two motorcycles parked in front of the facility were destroyed. No wounded were reported in the incident. Greece ó s Police Chief Anastasios Dimosharis said that ten persons wearing hoods took part in the attack, which was attributed to anarchist groups.

By DPA, Washington/Tehran : The US expressed deep concern Saturday over an eight-year prison sentence imposed by the Iranian judiciary on Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi for spying. "I am deeply disappointed," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "We will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government." Saberi, 31, a reporter for US National Public Radio, was sentenced on charges of spying for the US after the closed-door trial, her lawyer told reporters in Tehran.

By RIA Novosti Moscow : The pro-Kremlin United Russia party officially nominated First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as its candidate to run for the president in the March 2008 elections. Medvedev was nominated at a party convention Monday with 478 delegates voting in favour, and one against, his candidacy. Last week, the United Russia party along with three other pro-Kremlin parties named Medvedev as their candidate to run for the polls. His nomination was backed by President Vladimir Putin.

By Xinhua, Changsha (China) : At least three people were killed and 60 injured as two passenger trains collided in central China's Hunan province Monday morning. The accident took place at 2.34 a.m. at Chenzhou railway station, 300 km from Changsha, capital of Hunan, according to local railway sources. A train going from Changsha to Shenzhen collided with another train going from Tongren to Shenzhen, causing several cars to derail, according to the sources.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

By IANS, Beijing : China's tea output reached 1.75 million tonnes last year, with 310,000 tonnes shipped overseas, an industry association official said Thursday.

Baghdad: A video has been circulating online purporting to show members of the Islamic State(IS) group beheading several Syrian soldiers and a US aid...

By DPA, Washington : US President Barack Obama's popularity has dropped to the lowest levels of his young presidency as the country's economy continues to struggle, job losses mount and a critical health reform effort has stalled in Congress. The number of Americans who say they trust Obama fell to 54 percent from 66 percent, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Washington daily Politico.

By IANS,

By IANS,

By DPA Nairobi : A large police force was on the streets of Nairobi Thursday morning as the opposition planned the second of three days of protests over Kenya's disputed presidential polls. A day after at least three people were killed in the countrywide protests, officers had blocked off central Nairobi's Uhuru Park, where the opposition has tried to demonstrate in vain. Police Wednesday used tear gas to break up demonstrators and said they would also not allow smaller gatherings. The opposition, however, vowed to defy a police ban on rallies.

By IANS, Washington : Race and gender influence how politicians speak, which might not always be to their advantage, according to a psycho-linguistic study. But there are notable exceptions like Barack Obama and Condoleezza Rice, who unlike the past generation of African-American leaders, display self-confidence and serenity and remain calm and composed under stress. The researchers, focusing on Obama's language, found that his presentation of himself is nothing like the traditional black political orator Martin Luther King or Jesse Jackson.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: In a bizarre tragedy, a 15-year-old boy working at a grain tower full of sunflower seeds, fell in and suffocated to death, officials said.

By IANS, Washington: Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef system, has lost half of its coral cover in the past 27 years, a study revealed Monday.

By IANS

New York : A multi-faith retreat centre near Boston that houses a life-size bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi is facing closure due to lack of state funding.