International

By IANS Washington : Almost 50 members of the US senate entered the race for president since Senator John F. Kennedy's successful bid in 1961 but failed. That losing streak is about to end. Bot h the Democratic hopefuls left in the tight race are senators - Hillary Clinton (New York) and Barack Obama (Illinois). John Edwards, who withdrew his candidacy in favour of Obama, too, is a senator from Massachusetts.

By P.K. Balachandran, IANS Colombo : Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was "critically injured" in an air raid on Nov 26, 2007, said Air Marshal Roshan Goonetilleke, commander of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF). However, B. Nadesan, head of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), said the claim was baseless. On Friday, Goonetilleke told the state-owned television network ITN that Prabhakaran's presence in the targeted site was evident in the volume of anti-aircraft fire that the raiders faced.

New Delhi: India will not fire the first bullet across the border, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday during his meeting with a...

By IANS, Kathmandu : After resisting a year-long fierce battle by the Maoists to topple his coalition government, Nepal's embattled Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is finally ready to quit so that the new session of parliament can start next week without obstruction by the former guerrillas. The 57-year-old soft-spoken but tough-willed communist leader will announce his resignation at 6 p.m. Wednesday, his office said.

By Bernama, Bangkok : Thailand's Constitution Court ruled Tuesday that Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama violated the Constitution by signing a joint communique with Cambodia concerning Preah Vihear temple without parliamentary endorsement. A nine-judge panel voted 8-1 to rule that the Thai-Cambodian Joint Communique regarding Preah Vihear is regarded as an international treaty under the charter's Article 190 and needed parliamentary endorsement prior to any signing.

By DPA, Washington : Barack Obama seems to have a thing for naming summits after drinks. The makers of those beverages couldn't be happier.

Abuja : More than 100 teenage girls were abducted Monday in northeastern Nigeria by suspected Boko Haram members, local sources and police said. The victims...

By DPA Berlin : Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany's state-owned railway, has prepared itself for an all-out strike by the main train drivers' union, a railway board member said in an interview published Sunday. DB would do all in its power to resolve the eight-month dispute by Jan 7, when the union says it intends to call its 15,000 drivers out on an indefinite strike, Georg Brunnhuber told the Sunday edition of the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.

By Xinhua, Kathmandu : Nepali Congress and the Communist Party Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) Saturday reached an understanding regarding the formation of new government and election of the first president, local media reported. According to a leading website, nepalnews.com report, in a discussion between the two parties held at Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's residence in Kathmandu Saturday, they agreed for two-third majority to unseat the president. However, the two parties agreed that a simple majority can change the prime minister.

By IANS New Delhi : Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran Tuesday asked the international community to stop aiding Sri Lanka and instead "take a new approach" regarding the Tamil separatist campaign. Blaming the world for Colombo's war on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Prabhakaran said in his annual speech that it was his hope that other countries would end their military and economic aid to the Sri Lankan state.

By Xinhua, Johannesburg: South Africa's President Jacob Zuma met the visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Saturday in the port city of Durban. "In both countries there are two new administrations which are taking the relationship a level higher. That is what we are trying to do," Zuma said after the 45-minute long meeting. "He (Zuma) gave his views on regional issues from Zimbabwe, Somalia and Sudan. His advice on these issues was extremely helpful," Clinton said a media briefing.

By IANS, Quito : Six soldiers were killed when the Ecuadorian military plane they were travelling in crashed, according to army sources. The crash, which occurred Wednesday at around 130 km southeast of Quito, was the third air mishap in three months in the country, a Xinhua report said. The previous two crashes did not cause any casualties.

By IANS, Washington : Researchers have unravelled an ancient missing link between today's spiders and their long-extinct ancestors, and that may help explain how spiders came to weave webs. The research by scientists at the University of Kansas (KU) and Virginia's Hampden-Sydney College focuses on fossil animals called Attercopus fimbriunguis. While modern spiders make silk threads with modified appendages called spinnerets, the fossil animals wove broad sheets of silk from spigots on plates attached to the underside of their bodies. Unlike spiders, they had long tails.

By IANS Colombo : Six soldiers were killed and 10 injured when Tamil Tiger guerrillas fired artillery shells at a church in northwestern Sri Lanka. The incident took place Tuesday when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired 130 mm artillery shells at soldiers doing 'shramadana' or voluntary cleaning work in St. Sabastian's church at Thalladi in the northwestern part of the island, a defence ministry spokesperson said. The assembly hall of the church was reduced to rubble.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : Even after losing his crown and being turned out of the palace, Nepal's dethroned king Gyanendra continues to face demands for more. Now, a Nepali farmer is laying claim to the dozens of cows herded in the former Narayanhity royal palace, saying they were promised to him. Less than two weeks of being officially proclaimed a republic, Nepal is discovering new things about the former palace that was once prohibited land for the government, let alone common people.

By DPA,

By Arun Kumar, IANS Washington : The US has repeated its call to Beijing to engage in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, denying suggestions it was pulling punches so as not to jeopardise President W. George Bush's visit to China. "We are very concerned about the situation in Tibet," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday drawing attention to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's call Saturday to Beijing to urge restraint in its response to protesters against Chinese rule in Tibet.

By IANS, Toronto : Spelling new hope for cancer patients, Canadian scientists have successfully tested a viral vaccine to improve immune response to the deadly disease. The scientists at the local Princess Margaret Hospital and the University of Toronto, in collaboration with international researchers, have discovered how to trigger an improved immune response to cancer. They say their discovery could be included in new clinical trials that use a patient's own cells to destroy tumours.

By KUNA, London : British Prime Minister David Cameron was visiting Rome Wednesday for talks with Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi, Downing Street confirmed. The prime ministers are to have a "working dinner" in the capital later on Wednesday. However, there are fears that an expected press conference afterwards could be dominated by questions about Berlusconi's private life, commentators here said. Berlusconi is also facing pressure politically after a split with the co-founder of his People of Freedom (PDL) party, which is threatening to undermine his parliamentary majority.

By IANS, By EFE,

By P. Karunakharan, IANS, Colombo : Sri Lanka Tuesday asked its ministers to curtail foreign trips and slashed the monthly monetary allocations to all the ministries by 50 percent. According to a statement from the government information department, Media Minister Laxman Yapa Abeyawardena said the "monthly monetary allocations to all ministries will be reduced by 50 percent as an austerity drive but the budgetary allocations for the year 2008 will remain intact".

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (KUNA) -- John McCain remained the front-running Republican, while Hillary Clinton held onto a shaky lead among Democrats in US presidential contests in two dozen states on "Super Tuesday." But, the results were mixed enough to keep alive the candidacies of key rivals, particularly that of Democrat Barack Obama who is surging in the money game and in perceived voter enthusiasm. The biggest surprise of the day was the revival of the campaign of Republican Mike Huckabee, while the biggest loser was Republican Mitt Romney.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : After a six-year dogged legal battle, Nepal's Supreme Court Sunday announced that the fate of alleged serial killer Charles Sobhraj, now is jail here, will be decided Jan 13. It was an anxious day for the 64-year-old, his lawyers and Nepali fiancée Nihita Biswas, as it initially seemed the critical final arguments by his lawyers would be postponed a record seventh time Sunday due to lack of time.

By IANS, London : The fate of British students who took this year's Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is in jeopardy with revelations that teenagers who themselves are yet to pass their examinations have been employed to mark the answer papers. Barry Sheerman, the Labour chairman of the Commons Schools Committee, has disclosed that he had been given evidence that the company entrusted with the marking of SAT answer sheets was employing pre-university students to mark papers, the Telegraph reported Thursday.

By IANS Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia's Bar Council has called off its annual human rights march for Sunday following disagreements within the body. The lawyer-members argued the pros and cons of the march, with one faction insisting the march should go on without a police permit while another wanted a permit to be obtained, the New Straits Times reported Wednesday. Bar Council chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan said that yet another group felt the walk should be cancelled altogether. "Our decision to not hold the walk was a majority decision, not a unanimous one," she said.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : Cutting across party lines, Nepalis have begun protesting against the government's decision to allow deposed king Gyanendra to move into a summer mansion from the Narayanhity palace, saying it smacked of privileges and went against the spirit of the newly declared republic.

By Xinhua, Washington : US president-elect Barack Obama Sunday said that it is challenging to close down the Guantanamo prison in Cuba soon after his inauguration Jan 20. "I think it's going to take sometime. Our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do," Obama said in an interview with ABC News. When asked if he would manage to close the camp within his first 100 days as president, Obama said: "That's a challenge".

By SPA Nairobi, Kenya : Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was due in Kenya on Tuesday to mediate a dispute over the country's presidential election, which triggered riots and ethnic fighting that killed more than 600 people, according to a report of the Associated Press. The Dec. 27 election returned President Mwai Kibaki to power for a second five-year term, with official results putting opposition leader Raila Odinga second in the closest presidential race in Kenya's history.

DPA Brussels, Nov 5 (DPA) As debate rages in Europe over genetically modified maize and "Frankenstein's potatoes", the continent is quietly moving towards a different new species: the Euro-parrot. "Ring-necked parakeets in Europe are isolated from the native population, so they will develop along their own evolutionary path. Given enough time, that should lead to the development of separate species," said Graham Madge of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : Top US Congressional leaders have backed the India-US civil nuclear deal to brighten the prospects for the landmark agreement to be approved before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Washington Sep 25. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined the Senate majority leader Harry Reid Thursday in indicating early approval of the agreement saying it "does have support in the House."

By Xinhua Beijing : Beijing will introduce tougher auto emission standards at the beginning of next year, as air pollution has become a major concern for the city in the preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. It is expected that the new standards will reduce the sulphur dioxide emissions by 1,840 tonnes every year, said Feng Yuqiao, an official with the Beijing environment protection bureau. Automobile distributors in Beijing are preparing for the new China IV standards that are equivalent to the Euro IV standards in the European Union, the official added.

By KUNA Tokyo : A total of 381 people involved in the riots in Aba county in the Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan Province, northwest China, have surrendered themselves to the police as of Monday noon, China's official news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday. Law enforcement authorities of Aba county issued a notice on March 19, urging those who had taken part in the riots on March 16 to submit themselves within ten days.

By DPA, Beijing : Military helicopters flew aid Wednesday to settlements cut off near the epicentre of a devastating earthquake in southwestern China as the confirmed death toll rose to about 15,000 with tens of thousands of others missing and feared dead. Heavy rain had initially prevented the helicopters from flying emergency aid to Wenchuan county in Sichuan province while troops were still trying to restore the badly damaged main road to the county.

By IANS, Brussels : Majority of European Union countries have put in place a common visa rule for their citizens travelling across the Schengen zone. The new visa code implemented since Monday will provide visa to the citizens of 22 countries through common easy procedure, EU's Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said. The EU member states will now have the same verification and entry procedures to grant permit for those travelling within the region for a maximum period of ninety days, Prensa Latina reported.

By Xinhua, New York : The 14th Dalai Lama, described as a "spiritual leader" by some Western media outlets, is actually a political figure who has never given up "Tibet independence," a Tibetologist said here Friday. "Painting him as a 'spiritual leader' is totally misleading," said Renzhen Luose, an ethnic Tibetan native of Yajiang County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province who once served as director of the province's Institute of Tibetan Studies.

By IANS, Beijing : China Friday urged the US to immediately cancel the planned meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, warning it...

By NNN-NepalNews Kathmandu : A day after the government’s invitation to Madhesi groups for talks, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala met some Madhesi leaders at Baluwatar Friday afternoon. Though there was no concrete understating at the meeting, Prime Minister Koirala is learnt to have assured that he would respond to the demands of the Madhesi parties, after discussing with the coalition partner, by this evening. The Madhesi leaders had met Koirala, seeking the government's commitment to address the demands raised by the Madhesi people.

By IANS, Havana : Three pregnant women have succumbed to swine flu in Cuba, becoming the first reported casualties of the disease in the country, reports EFE news agency. Cuban authorities said 621 cases of swine flu have been confirmed. Luis Estruch, deputy minister of hygiene, epidemiology and microbiology, said 177 of the patients were children.

By DPA, Tel Aviv/Ramallah : A peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians is still possible by the end of the year, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday after further talks with the two sides. Expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which affected confidence-building between Israel and the Palestinian Authority remained "problematic", she said. Rice was speaking in Ramallah after talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - a meeting which in turn had followed talks she had with Israeli leaders late Saturday and early Sunday.

London : Britain's Conservative Party headed by Prime Minister David Cameron is leading in the general elections held on Thursday, winning 292 out of...

By DPA Wellington : Six firefighters were seriously injured and several reported missing after a series of explosions set off a massive blaze at a factory near Hamilton, in New Zealand's North Island, Saturday, news reports said. Hamilton Hospital said it had received mass casualties and appealed for assistance from outside the city, channel TV3 reported. It showed film of a huge blaze said to be out of control at the Icepak Coolstores factory, which is next door to a school, and spreading to other parts of the suburb of Tamahere, about 10 km south of the city.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : In a couple of years, a new kind of vessel will appear on the sea - the floating nuclear power plant (FNPP). The Academician Lomonosov, currently under construction in Russia, is only one project of the several FNPP being developed. The formal keel laying ceremony took place in April 2007 at the Sevmash shipyard of the Russian State Centre for Nuclear Shipbuilding in Severodvinsk. After about a year and a half, the state-owned corporation Rosatom revoked the general contract, handing it over to the Baltiysky Zavod (Baltic Plant) Shipyard in St. Petersburg.

By Xinhua, Moscow : Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday slammed the statement made by U.S. President George W. Bush on the conflict between Russia and Georgia, saying facts mentioned in the speech are untrue, Russian news agencies reported. "I listened to George Bush's statement -- and was surprised -- the facts he cited are untrue," Lavrov was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying. He flatly denied the claims of the U.S. president that Russian troops had blocked Georgia's Black Seaport of Poti.

Moscow : Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday submitted to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, a proposal to terminate agreements with Ukraine...

By IANS, London : Anaconda, an innovative wave energy concept, holds the key to cheaper energy from the sea waves. Named after the snake because of its long thin tubular shape, Anaconda is closed at both ends, filled with water. It will be submerged below sea level, with one end facing the oncoming waves. A wave hitting the end squeezes it and causes a 'bulge wave' to form inside the tube. As the bulge wave runs through the tube, the sea wave that caused it runs along outside the tube, squeezing the tube more and more, causing the bulge wave to get bigger.

By IANS, Colombo : The Sri Lankan Army Wednesday celebrated its 63rd anniversary by staging a parade and several other events, an official said.

By DPA Jakarta : More than 130 people have died or have been missing in landslides and flash floods in the wake of torrential rain that swept through densely populated Central and East Java provinces of Indonesia, police and media said Monday. More than 1,600 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged, an official at the National Disaster Management Agency said.

By IANS, Kathmandu : The government of Nepal plans to ease visas for Nepal-bound Chinese tourists, officials said Thursday.

By IANS, Kathmandu : President Ram Baran Yadav Friday granted six more days to the political parties to pick a new consensus prime minister.

By Xinhua Colombo : Ten Tamil Tiger rebels and two soldiers were killed in a fierce battle in the north Saturday, Sri Lankan military said. Army officials said troops who mobilised artillery guns and armour tanks destroyed a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) bunker line and captured four rebel bunkers to the north of Manthai in Mannar district. The air force also participated in the mission using MI-24 gunship during the mission, the officials said.

By IANS,

By IANS, Sydney : The more the people ride bicycles, the less likely are they to be injured in traffic accidents, according to a study. International research reveals that a cyclist is far less likely to collide with a motor vehicle or suffer injury and death - and what's true for cyclists is true for pedestrians. "It's a virtuous cycle," said Julie Hatfield, an injury expert from University of North South Wales (UNSW) who addressed a cycling safety seminar in Sydney Sep 5.

By DPA Trier (Germany) : Erotic carvings and excavated Roman artefacts connected to sex will go on display Saturday in Germany's best-preserved ancient Roman city Trier. The temporary exhibition, 100,000 Years of Sex, comprises 250 items, mainly archaeological. They date back to the Stone Age and show how our ancestors experienced lust and procreation, said Mechthild Neyses-Eiden, deputy director of the museum.

By IANS, Lima : At least 18 people died and many were injured in four separate road accidents in Peru, police said.

By KUNA, London : The UK should not rule out talking to Al-Qaeda in a strategy to end its campaign of violence, according to one of the country's most senior policemen Friday. Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief, Sir Hugh Orde, told The Guardian newspaper that talking to Al-Qaeda was not unthinkable but "a question of timing." He said 30 years tackling the Irish Republican Army (IRA) had taught him that policing alone was not enough to defeat terrorism. The British government had already rejected suggestions it negotiate with Al-Qaeda.

By DPA, Munich : Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the German company caught up in the wave of western bank failures, said Saturday a government-backed bail-out it was seeking had collapsed. The mortgage lender said assurances of loans from several other financial institutions had expired. Newspaper reports said leading German banks had discovered that HRE's troubles were more serious than first thought. HRE, which mainly lends to commercial projects and to build public facilities, is the first German casualty of the crisis that has spread from New York in the past month.

By Xinhua, Beijing : Chinese President Hu Jintao Friday presented medals and certificates to astronauts Jing Haipeng, Liu Boming and the country's first space walker Zhai Zhigang for their historic performance even as the government decided to decorate them with state honours. The government said Zhai would be conferred with the title of Space Flight Hero while Liu and Jing would be decorated with the title of Heroic Astronaut.

By IANS, Toronto : Carry-on bags were also banned on the US-bound flights from Canada Monday even as tighter security measures threw departures into chaos. The new security measures came into force at the weekend following Friday's failed attempt by an al-Qaeda-linked Nigerian man to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight at Detroit. Initially, the authorities banned only extra carry-on bags, apart from introducing physical searches at the airplane boarding gates.

By IANS, Kathmandu : The Nepal government Tuesday afternoon handed over the bodies of 13 people who were killed in Sunday's plane crash to the...

By SPA, Colombo : Sri Lankan soldiers attacked Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers along the northern front lines, triggering separate gunbattles that killed 27 guerrillas and three soldiers, the military said Monday. Fighting has escalated in recent months on the Indian Ocean island, with the military capturing a series of rebel bases and large chunks of territory. Officials have pledged to crush the guerrillas by the end of the year, according to a report of Associated Press.

By IRNA, Tehran : UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message on World Tuberculosis Day, March 24, 2010, said in this day and age, no one should be dying from TB. According to a press release issued by the UN Information Center (UNIC) here on Thursday, in his message, Ban referred to the goal set by the international community to prevent and treat all forms of TB, in adults and children, and among people living with HIV. The full text of his message reads:

By RIA Novosti, Beijing : New spheres of cooperation should be developed through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), particularly the sphere of energy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Chinese students on Saturday. The president, on the second day of his official visit to Beijing, told students at Peking University: "Within the framework of this organization we are able to agree on new directions of cooperation, including on the energy issue."

By TCN News Washington, DC: Keith Ellison, member of the US House of Representative has introduced a resolution marking the tenth anniversary of Gujarat violence in 2002.

Ulan Bator : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday told his Mongolian counterpart Chimed Saikhanbileg that India is privileged to be considered as Mongolia's...

By KUNA, RAMALLAH : Israeli special forces killed Thursday morning an activist affiliated with Islamic Jihad Movement in Jenin. Israeli special forces, not in uniform, opened fire on Alaa' Abu Rab's house after surrounding it, witnesses told KUNA, adding that Israeli forces prevented Abu Rab's family from taking him to hospital as he bled to death. They added that Israeli forces attacked the house with grenades, opened fire, and forced the family out.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

By RIA Novosti Astana (Kazakhstan) : Russia will start supplying up to five million tonnes (36.7 million barrels) of oil a year to China via Kazakhstan from 2008, the industry and energy minister said Monday. "Following bilateral talks, the parties signed a protocol on Kazakhstan and Russia's oil transit in 2008. Under the protocol, Russia will for the first time start supplying five million tonnes of oil per year to China via Kazakhstan," Viktor Khristenko said.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : The US government is close to finalising a rescue plan for Citigroup, whose stocks have been battered in recent days over worries about its financial health, but the fate of its Indian American CEO Vikram Pandit and other executives remains unclear, media reports said Monday.

By IANS, Ulan Bator (Mongolia) : About 50 protesters on horseback encircled the Government House here Friday and shot arrows at it to protest the lack of a referendum on parliamentary elections.

By IANS/EFE, Port-au-Prince : Bodies of victims started swelling in the heat as thousands of survivors spent the second night in the streets of Haiti's capital which was devastated by a high-intensity earthquake. "Some bodies are starting to swell in the heat," Radio Metropole reported on its website, adding that "the majority of service stations are out of fuel". Haitians have taken to sleeping in the streets since the temblor struck Tuesday. Some residents wander amid rotting corpses, while the injured wait for assistance and those trapped in the rubble cry for help.

By IANS,

By Xinhua

Moscow : President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia would take retaliatory measures against the deployment of a US missile defense system in Central Europe, Itar-Tass news agency reported Monday.