International

Jerusalem: Israeli security forces have been put on high alert after a Palestinian teenager, who was critically wounded during a protest in east Jerusalem...

By RIA Novosti Washington : U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touched down in Florida after a 16-day trip to deliver part of a Japanese research lab and a Canadian robot to the International Space Station. NASA said the shuttle landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:39 p.m. EDT on Wednesday (00:39 GMT Thursday) just after sunset, "bringing the STS-123 mission to a flawless end." The landing was slightly delayed due to cloud cover over Florida, and the shuttle made an additional orbit of the Earth before entering the atmosphere.

By DPA, Vienna : The price for crude oil produced by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell by almost a dollar Wednesday but stayed above $120 a barrel, OPEC said Thursday. One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at $120.88 Wednesday, $0.85 less than $121.73 on the previous day. OPEC calculates an average basket price based on 13 important brands produced by cartel members.

By IANS, Melbourne : Australian police are hunting a gang of thugs of Asian appearance for beating up three youths in this city. A 20-year-old was taken to hospital and treated for serious cranial fractures after he was punched and kicked in his head following a verbal stoush outside a carpark Sunday. The Pascoe Vale man had just left the multi-level carpark with three friends around 12.15 a.m. when they got into an argument with a group of six, five of whom looked Asian, The Age reported Thursday.

Moscow: Russia looks forward to expand it military presence in the world's key areas, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday. "We are going to expand...

By DPA, Washington : His campaign promised change and his election as America's first black president broke historical barriers, yet when Democrat Barack Obama moves into the White House Tuesday, tradition guides every step of the ceremonial day. Republican President George W. Bush will hand over power to Obama according to symbolism and rules that have evolved during the country's 220-year history and 56 inaugural ceremonies.

Tokyo: A powerful quake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale jolted Fukushima prefecture in the northeast Japan early Saturday, Xinhua reported. There was no...

Washington, Dec 29 (Prensa Latina) The failure of immigration law reform at the Senate was one of the worst legislative events in US, in 2007, commented Washington Hispanic daily. After the attempt of the Senate to approve a migration reform fell through, an anti immigrant current has increased in most of the nation, noted the newspaper in the capital. According to the source the fiasco of the initiative was mainly due to the reaction of Xenophobe minorities, among them the so-called Minuteman that swamped the Congress' lines by calls and e-mails.

By DPA Rome : European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said his talks with Iranian negotiators were "constructive" but sanctions against Iran would continue until an agreement to resolve the dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme was reached. Solana made the remarks during a joint news conference here Tuesday with Iran's outgoing chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and his recently announced replacement, Saied Jalili. Larijani said "discussions were clear and transparent" and progress had been made.

By IANS, New York : Over 20,000 government telephones in New Jersey have been disconnected after an audit found they were lying useless and costing the economy over $3 million. Telecommunications authorities disconnected the phones that "no one was using", after the audit report was released. New Jersey State Comptroller Matthew Boxer said the Office of Information Technology will "generate periodic reports of lines with zero usage to ensure agencies are disconnecting their unused lines", Fox News reported.

By IANS, Beijing : Eleven people have died due to food poisoning in northwest China, authorities said Sunday.

By DPA, Colombo : At least 15 Tamil rebels and seven soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Sri Lanka during a military offensive on rebel strongholds, military officials said Tuesday. Two soldiers were killed in each of three separate incidents in the Mullaitivu district and another soldier was killed in Kilinochchi district, 320 km north of the capital Colombo. Among the rebels, six were killed in a Kilinochchi and one in Vavuniya and eight others were killed in fighting with government troops in Weloya, officials said.

By IANS,

By IANS,

By DPA Washington : US President George W. Bush has exempted the Navy from an environmental law regulating the use of sonar off the California coast, the White House said. Bush is determined that the Navy needs to use the mid-frequency sonar to effectively train for anti-submarine warfare "in support of worldwide operational and combat activities, which are essential to national security". The law is designed to protect marine life from what environmentalists believe are the harmful effects of sonar that can be lethal or cause whales to beach themselves.

By IANS, Santo Domingo : At least 40 Haitian illegal immigrants have drowned when their ship sank off the Cuban coast, Xinhua reported Sunday.

By NNN-TNA, Bangkok : A bomb exploded inside Thailand's Government House compound Saturday morning, held by anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters since late August, wounding a PAD volunteer guard. No other casualties were reported. The witnesses said a bomb exploded at the PAD security guard's tent outside the Santi Maitree building inside the Government House compound. Wounded in the incident was security volunteer Methee U-thong who suffered injuries on his face, neck and head. He was sent to Vajira Hospital for treatment.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : Riot police were called to restore order as violence, arson and looting erupted Saturday at the heart of the capital as its Newar community went on the rampage, protesting the secular budget unveiled Friday that slashed allocations for religious festivals.

By NNN-PTI, Moscow : At least 20 people including four sailors were killed and 21 injured in a gas leak accident on board a brand new nuclear-powered Nerpa submarine to be leased to India during a sea trial in the Pacific Ocean. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a high level probe into the major accident, the worst since the 2000 Kursk mishap.

Kathmandu : The toll in the massive earthquake that devastated Nepal rose to over 2,300 on Sunday, the government said. Nepal's ministry of home affairs...

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: Russia Wednesday launched a freight rocket to the International Space Atation from Kazakhstan's Baikonur space centre.

By RIA Novosti Washington : The US has agreed to negotiate a legally binding nuclear warheads verification regime after the Cold War era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty-I (START-I) expires, a Republican senator has said. Richard Lugar made this comment Wednesday at a conference on weapons of mass destruction entitled "Defence in Depth Against WMD Threats: Preparedness at Home and Abroad," in Chantilly, Virginia.

By RIA Novosti Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Far East) : Russia has informed the NATO fleet that a Russian ship was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia, the Russian Far Eastern rescue center said on Sunday. "The ship was seized by pirates near Somalia on February 1 at 1:17 p.m. Greenwich Time," the center said. According to the center, the ship, Svitser Korsakov, had six people on its board: two Brits and four Russians.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet crashed in the Urals Tuesday, killing both pilots, officials said.

By IANS, London : Administering antibiotics to intensive care unit or ICU patients as a preventive measure reduces chances of death, according to a study. The study involved nearly 6,000 Dutch patients in 13 hospitals. Researchers compared the effect of two kinds of antibiotic treatments with the standard ICU care. They divided into three groups nearly 6,000 patients hospitalised in ICUs between 2004 and 2006. The patients in question were expected to be on a ventilator for at least two days and/or to be admitted to the ICU for at least three days.

By IANS,

By IANS,

By Xinhua, Washington : U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would receive his nomination at a grand stadium in Denver, Colorado, instead of a hall as originally planned, according to a TV report on Monday. The Illinois senator was expected to receive his moment as the party's presidential nominee on Aug. 28 at the 75,000-seat INVESCO Field at Mile High that could hold much larger audience, the Democratic national convention organizers told CNN. The convention was originally scheduled at the Pepsi Center, where there are about 20,000 seats.

By Xinhua, Jakarta : About 50 percent of Indonesian political parties that registered with the General Election Commission (KPU) for participation in the 2009 polls failed to pass verification tests, KPU chairman Hafiz Ansyari said on Monday. The results of the verification tests would be announced Monday night, but it was already certain that about half of them had failed, Antara news agency quoted Hafiz as saying at the launch of a 2009 general election familiarization campaign in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: The Russian government's Military Industrial Commission may consider creating private military companies in the country, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said.

By Xinhua, St. Paul, the United States : Alaska governor Sarah Palin will accept the Republican vice presidential nomination Wednesday night in St. Paul, Minn., at the third night of the Republican National Convention. Earlier in the morning, the 44-year old first-term female governor took tour of the stage at the convention, and stood at the lectern where she'll deliver her first major speech as presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was set to deliver the night's keynote address.

By DPA

London : Britain's already dramatic "summer floods" which have paralysed parts of the country are far from over and further flooding is "very likely," Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said Monday.

"We believe that up to 10,000 homes have been or could be flooded," Benn told parliament in an update on the emergency which has hit central and south-west Britain.

With further rainfalls being forecast, the Environment Agency (EA) said that crisis point could be reached in some areas.

By DPA, Wellington : Relations between Fiji's military government and its biggest South Pacific neighbours Australia and New Zealand were poised to worsen Wednesday after the island state expelled their senior diplomats. New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said his government was considering a tit-for-tat expulsion of Fijian diplomats and warning its citizens about travelling to the island nation, which has been under military rule for nearly three years following a coup.

By IANS, Mumbai : The US drug administration has approved an anti-depressant drug manufactured by the $694 million pharma major Lupin Ltd for marketing in that country, the company said Monday. In a regulatory intimation, Lupin said the green-signal for its anti-depressant Escitalopram Oxalate tablets was given to its US subsidiary Lupin Pharmaceuticals. The market for the drug is valued at $2.6 billion. Mumbai-based Lupin manufactures Escitalopram tablets, administered during treatment of major depressive disorders, under the Lexapro brand name.

By IANS/EFE, Bogota : Colombia only has enough oil to last another eight years and must urgently step up exploration efforts to locate more reserves, Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas said.

By IANS, Beijing : China and Russia have pledged to make joint efforts to seek a political solution to the ongoing Syrian turbulence as the two countries' foreign ministers held talks in Beijing.

By RIA Novosti Donetsk(Ukraine) : Local prosecutors opened Monday a criminal investigation into a mine blast in east Ukraine's Donetsk region as the death toll rose to 72, with 28 miners still missing. The Zasyadko coalmine was hit by a methane explosion early Sunday, causing a fire in the mine. At the time of the blast, 457 miners were underground. A total of 357 miners have since been brought overground.

By Xinhua, Yangon : In a marked departure from its earlier stance, Myanmar's junta has agreed to send a foreign diplomatic mission to oversee the status of the deadly cyclone-hit areas, diplomatic sources said Saturday. It is the first time that the government made such move to allow foreigners to inspect the cyclone-hit areas in the aftermath of the disaster. The diplomatic mission includes officials of resident UN and foreign diplomats in Myanmar.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,

By DPA, Rome : The Italian government announced Saturday a nationwide state of emergency in reaction to a phenomenal increase in illegal immigration to the country's south. The Silvio Berlusconi government's move is to provide local authorities with greater means to deal with the rising tide of illegals arriving by boat. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni plans to build new intake centres throughout the country, the daily La Repubblica reported.

By DPA, Belgrade : The longest-serving member of the Serbian government and one of the most controversial Health Minister Tomica Milosavljevic, announced his resignation Friday.

By IANS, London: Singer Kelly Osbourne has been awarded as the Style Icon award at the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women of The Year Awards 2012.

BY IANS/RIA Novosti,

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS, Toronto : Even as Canadians continue to protest the arrival last week in Vancouver of a ship carrying about 500 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers, Canada's first Sikh MP Gurbax Singh Malhi has been dragged into the divisive issue for his alleged support for the Tamil Tigers. The six-times MP is angry after a columnist in the Toronto Sun named him for his alleged support for the Tamil Tigers.

By Prensa Latina, Washington : The team of Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain tries to defame his rival Barack Obama with tactics used by President George W. Bush. The New York Times says McCain's new strategy shows tactics of ex pupils of Karl Rove, ex aide of Bush that resigned amid scandal for manipulation and misuse of intelligence. The paper says McCain promised he would not use unlawful attacks but forgot his promises when the possibilities to loose were pretty narrow.

By RIA Novosti Beijing : Foreign ministers of the six countries negotiating North Korea's nuclear disarmament will meet in Singapore July 23, South Korea's Yonhap agency said Friday. The six countries involved in the talks - Russia, the United States, China, Japan and the two Koreas - have never yet sent their top diplomats to the negotiations, which have been running since 2003.

Athens : If Greece follows the advice of a former Goldman Sachs banker, the global investment banking firm could face legal action for...

By Minu Jain, IANS,

By EFE, Buenos Aires : Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has proposed to hold Congressional elections four months earlier than scheduled to allow the government focus more on fighting the economic crisis. But analysts and opponents have called it a political gimick. "We cannot be in elections (mode) until October, in a permanent debate when the world is falling to pieces and the pieces are falling on us: it would be suicide," Fernandez said at a public event Friday.

By Xinhua Madrid : Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba has said that the two men suspected of involvement in the 2006 Madrid airport bombing have been arrested by the police. Rubalcaba Saturday confirmed that the Spanish and French police have arrested three suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA Friday in southern France, two of who are suspects of the Madrid bombing. The deadly bombing Dec 30, 2006, at the Madrid airport destroyed a multi-storey parking garage and killed two people.

Kabul : Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is behind the fighting across war-raged Afghanistan, says Afghan Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum, the media reported. "The war not...

By DPA, Copenhagen : Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was to kick-start a mammoth UN conference in Copenhagen Monday aimed at halting global warming. The conference's opening ceremony was preceded by a joint leader article, published by 56 newspapers in 45 countries, calling on world leaders to place "decisive action" ahead of mutual recrimination. Without action, "climate change will ravage our planet, and, with it, our prosperity and security", the article said, citing record warm years, the melting Arctic ice cap "and last year's inflamed oil and food prices".

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Washington: The US Senate has recommended that President Barack Obama study the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Syria.

By TCN News, New York, NY: They came in large numbers, represented different faiths and ideological persuasions, and from across the United States. Protesters outside the Madison Square Garden event today in New York City, came to stand up for seclarism, and to convey some firm and simple demands to visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under the banner of "Alliance for Justice and Accountability."

By IANS, Singapore : Once there was a dirty bit of sea next to the world's busiest port here. Today it is an island where birds nest and people play, though the entire island is made of rubbish. You wouldn't know unless you were told. There's no sight or smell at Semakau landfill to indicate it is the last depository of Singapore's garbage. The corals and all the animals of the beach have been fooled too - they think it's a natural island, and they have grown in droves around it.

By Xinhua, Beijing : China Tuesday confirmed an outbreak of bird flu in the southern province of Guangdong but said it was under control. Laboratory tests of dead ducks at Yashan village recently detected the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, the agriculture ministry said in a brief statement, without saying when the outbreak took place. It said some 17,127 ducks were culled. Emergency measures have been taken and the epidemic has been brought under control, the ministry said. The country has reported seven bird flu outbreaks since the beginning of 2008.

By RIA Novosti, Belgrade : Serbs are voting on Sunday in a key parliamentary election expected to decide the country's future. A pro-Western alliance led by President Boris Tadic is running against the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party in a closely contested early parliamentary vote. The Radicals want to put Serbia's EU membership on hold and continue to lay claim to Serbia's former province of Kosovo that unilaterally declared independence in February while the Democrats push for the country's integration with Europe.

By EFE, Buenos Aires : The number of people to die of swine flu in Argentina has risen to 465, the health ministry said in a report. Till date, 8,240 people have been infected with the influenza A (H1N1) virus, also called swine flu, in the country, the report said Friday. Earlier in July, the health authorities had put restrictions on business and public activities in the country due to the swine flu outbreak. The fatalities from the disease have decreased since June 26 and the most recent death was reported Aug 20, the report said.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : Americans think Barack Obama's overall performance as president deserves a grade of C+ or just about average, according to a new national poll. He was graded C+ on foreign affairs too. The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Thursday as the president approaches 200 days in the White House, asked respondents to use a grading scale of A, B, C, D, and F, where A is excellent and F is very poor.

By IRNA,

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Engines for Russia's new Superjet-100 airliner have failed to receive certification as they have several significant flaws, a business daily said Tuesday. The Superjet-100 project is a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by the Sukhoi aircraft maker in cooperation with the US and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.

By Xinhua Colombo : The Sri Lankan government said Monday it was contemplating offering overseas jobs to Tamil Tiger rebels who surrendered to the authorities. Keheliya Rambukwella, defence spokesman and minister of foreign employment told reporters that he had discussed the issue with the International Organization for Migration. He said some 47 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) members who had surrendered in the northern Jaffna peninsula were being rehabilitated in two centres.

By DPA, Beijing : With envoys of the Dalai Lama due in China for talks with the government on the crisis in Tibet, the Chinese media Saturday again hit out at the Tibetan spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama was once more branded a "criminal" by Xizang Ribao newspaper, which accused the "Dalai clique" of urging Tibetans to take part in the violent March 14 protests in Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited regions in neighbouring provinces.

Beijing: As many as 175 people were killed and more than 1,400 injured after a 6.5-magnitude earthquake jolted southwest China Sunday. The strong quake hit at...

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : The Russian Navy will participate in a large-scale submarine rescue exercise conducted by the NATO, a navy spokesman said. The Bold Monarch 2008 exercise will be staged near the Norwegian coast from May 26 to June 7. The Russian Navy is participating for the first time in a NATO-led naval exercise. Support personnel and equipment from Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Britain and the US will be engaged "to solve complex rescue and medical problems in a variety of scenarios".

By IANS, New Delhi: Tibetan medicine is sought after the world over now and even officials in Communist China are keen followers of the system of treatment, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said here Saturday. "There is a lot of interest in Tibetan medicine all over the world... even Communist officials in China have shown interest, and many even take treatment," the Dalai Lama said at the launch of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Institute and Cancer Centre at Max Healthcare hospital in Saket, south Delhi.

By IANS, Beijing : As many as 4,251 couples registered their marriage here Saturday on China's Valentine's Day, authorities said.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

Kathmandu : The death toll in the deadly Nepal earthquake has touched 7,652 while 16,390 people have been injured, the home ministry said on...

Rio de Janeiro : Hundreds of women rallied in front of the Planalto Palace, the government headquarters, in Brasilia in support of Brazilian President...

By IANS, Islamabad : Baloch insurgents Monday claimed to have executed a UN official held captive for about three weeks in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, media reports said. John Solecki, a US national who led the UN refugee agency's regional office, was kidnapped Feb 2 by gunmen in the provincial capital Quetta, while he was on his way to work in a car carrying the UN emblem and registration plates. His Pakistani driver was shot dead in the ambush.

By IANS, Washington : The US has issued a worldwide travel alert for American nationals ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Tokyo : Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here Sunday on the second leg of his five-day visit to Japan. Modi reached the Japanese capital after...

United Nations: The UN mission in Libya hopes that the newly-elected parliament can lead efforts to end surging violence and promote political process, a...

By IRNA, Berlin : An international one-day Shia conference here Friday stressed the need to promote "friendship among religions." "The core message of this conference is friendship among religions," said Iran's Ambassador to Germany Ali Reza Sheikh Attar in his opening address to the symposium. Sheikh Attar's remarks were echoed by the Cultural Attache of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran Homayoun Hemmati who urged "cooperation among all followers of religions." He added the Shia school of thought emphasized "the unity of all followers of religions."

Pyongyang, June 26 (Xinhua) A delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived here Tuesday to discuss the shutdown of North Korea's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. It is the UN watchdog's first visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since late 2002. This visit came after US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill paid a productive visit to the country last Friday. Olli Heinonen, head of the delegation and IAEA deputy director general, said he was optimistic about the talks with his North Korean counterpart.

By DPA, Paris : At least 10 people have died and four were missing Wednesday after heavy rains lashed parts of southern France, French media reported. All of the fatalities occurred in the south-eastern region of Var, where some 200,000 households were without electricity early Wednesday. According to France Info radio, more than 400 people had to be rescued by helicopter from their homes. In addition, travellers were stranded in railway stations and roads were littered with abandoned automobiles due to the swiftly rising floodwaters.

By IANS, Seoul : North Korea is believed to be on its way to miniaturizing nuclear weapons, the South Korean defence ministry said Friday.

By Xinhua, Washington : The US trade deficit fell by 28.3 percent in February to $25.97 billion, the lowest since November 1999, the commerce department reported Thursday. This marked a record seventh straight month of trade deficit decline in the country. Analysts had been expecting the trade imbalance to narrow to $36.4 billion. US exports of goods and services unexpectedly increased by 1.6 percent in February to $126.76 billion, the first increase after six straight monthly declines.

By IANS, Washington : Patients needing organ transplants may not need donated organs any more. A kind of 'instructor' molecule that tells blood vessel cells to organise themselves in tubes and not in layers could be an important step towards programming stem cells into building new organs instead.

By IANS, New York : While the world is debating the merits of Barack Obama and John McCain, leading public intellectual Noam Chomsky is not impressed with all the "rhetoric" and says the US essentially has only one party: business party. When the German news magazine Der Spiegel asked him if he was fired up with the Democratic candidate's slogan of "Change", Chomsky said: "Not in the least. The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington: A "surprised and deeply humbled" President Barack Obama said Friday he would accept the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize "as a call to action". "I am both surprised and deeply humbled" by the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, a beaming Obama said in brief remarks in the White House Rose Garden.

By Aadil Mir New Delhi/Karachi : A Dalit Hindu reporter working with Pakistan's state-run news agency says he has slipped into depression after facing discrimination...

By DPA, New York : US stocks posted strong gains Wednesday as most companies that reported profits for the first quarter beat estimates on the day, drowning out reports of a sharp contraction in the US economy over the first three months. Time Warner, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, DreamWorks Animation SKG and Hess Corp all beat analysts' expectations, offering some hope that the worst may be over and driving all major US stock indices up by more than 2 percent.

By DPA, Bangkok : Britain has revoked tourist visas for fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife Pojaman, media reports here said Saturday. Thai newspapers claimed a cancellation notification was sent to various airlines by the UK Border Agency at a time when the former first couple were travelling outside London, where they have been living in self-exile. "Airlines are advised not to carry these passengers to the UK," said the e-mail message to airlines, signed by Bangkok-based immigration liaison manager Andy Gray.

By IANS/EFE

By SPA, Washington : U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday called for the end of increasing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, despite the Kyoto Protocol. Speaking at the White House Rose Garden, Bush declared his “new national goal” to stop greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 by “more rapidly slow[ing] the growth of power-sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter.”

New York : The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) should adopt the recommendation of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to create...

By SPA Tokyo : Japan considers Indonesia`s presence at a G-8 meeting in Hokkaido next July very important as Indonesia is expected to voice the developing countries` views on current international issues, a senior Japanese official said here on Thursday, according to ANTARA. "Indonesia and other ASEAN member countries are invited to offer suggestions in an effort to build constructive discussions in the G-8 meeting," the Japanese official said.

By IANS, Colombo : Stepping up air raids on Tamil Tiger bases, Sri Lankan Russian-built MiG-27 jets bombed a suspected rebel position in the northwestern Mannar district early Thursday, the military said. "MiG-27 fighter jets raided an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) stronghold during a close air support mission launched to assist advancing ground troops in Mannar," the defence ministry said in a statement.

By M.R. Narayan Swamy, IANS, Even the pictures could not have fully captured the immense joy President Mahinda Rajapaksa may have felt when he victoriously toured Kilinochchi, the once quaint Sri Lankan town the Tamil Tigers had made the hub of a de facto state they thought no one could vanquish. But dreams do sometimes turn into disasters.

By IANS, Beijing: China's manufacturing activity saw an increase for the third straight month in November, official data showed Saturday.

By Xinhua Jakarta : Engagement and incentives, not just pressure and punishment, from the international community will help Myanmar move down the right path, UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari said Thursday. "The government of Indonesia and the UN are working together closely to engage the authority of Myanmar to change into a peaceful, stable and democratic nation," Gambari told a press conference after meeting Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda.

By Xinhua

Washington : Former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned over allegations of favouritism, has joined the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington think tank, as a visiting scholar.