International

DUBAI, May 15 (NNN-WAM)--- The Middle East will be at the forefront of weather-change consequences as water and other resources become ever more scarce, reported the Gulf News. Citing a report by Christian Aid, who have been monitoring the impact of environmental change across the planet, the Dubai-based daily said that the planet is facing a catastrophe." If no cohesive global action is taken to combat climate change, then about one in seven of the global population will be forced to leave their homes by 2050. "That is the stunning conclusion that cannot be easily dismissed.

By Maitreyee Boruah,IANS, Jungfraujoch (Switzerland) : Agatha Christie fans may remember Hercule Poirot solving a murder at the highest station of a Swiss funicular railway as heavy snowfall isolated it from the rest of the world. Atop a funicular here, similarly isolated scientists are probing another mystery -- why the earth's climate is changing -- and they would welcome collaboration with India.

By IANS/EFE, Havana: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is once again in Cuba, where he arrived with substantially more security precautions than normal to undergo treatment.

BY IANS, London: An Indian was among some 60 environmental campaigners who climbed on to the roof of the British parliament Sunday evening to urge rich nations to take the lead on climate change action. "We are here on the roof because we want to tell British MPs that it is the rich countries who must lead by example and announce binding cuts on their carbon emissions," Brikesh Singh of Greenpeace India told IANS on mobile telephone.

By DPA, Paris : The French budget deficit rose to 56.2 billion euros ($72.5 billion) in 2008, an increase of 44 percent over the previous year, the budget ministry announced Friday. Budget Minister Eric Woerth immediately tried to reassure the French that there would be no tax increase in 2009 to make up for the revenue shortfall that helped create the large deficit. "If we increase taxes, the (economic) crisis will deepen," Woerth told LCI television. The deficits, Woerth said, are the inevitable results of the economic crisis, and will grow even larger this year.

By IANS New York : The senate of New Mexico, a southern US state, will open with the chanting of Hindu prayers Jan 28. Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain who made news by reading Hindu prayers in the US senate in July, will read Sanskrit mantras from ancient Hindu scriptures before the senate in Santa Fe. Zed, a resident of Reno, Nevada, is also scheduled to recite Vedic prayers in the Colorado senate in Denver Jan 29.

By DPA, Washington : US President Barack Obama has authorised the formation of an elite interrogation team to handle top terrorism suspects, the Washington Post reported on its website Monday, citing senior administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The group would be based at the FBI, the chief domestic law enforcement agency. However, the Post reported, the interrogation team would operate under the oversight of the White House-based National Security Council, which reports directly to the president.

By DPA, Seoul: North Korea used international negotiations to buy time for its nuclear weapons programme, having started a uranium-based programme shortly after a 1994 deal to abandon nuclear weapons, South Korea's foreign minister said Wednesday. Yu Myung Hwan told the official Yonhap News Agency that it was likely Pyongyang started uranium work soon after concluding the Agreed Framework with Washington in Geneva. In that agreement, it promised to freeze its nuclear activities in exchange for energy aid and the construction of two light-water reactors.

By IANS, Pretoria : Around 300,000 motorists were penalised for violating traffic rules in South Africa last month, where 1100 people fell victims to road accidents during the period, according to a government data. A preliminary reports by the department of transport said, 1100 deaths were recorded on the country's roads in December. And, 103 persons died in the first week of January 2010. The department, however, said the official toll during the festive season would be released later this month.

By IANS, Washington: Richard Holbrooke, US Special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, says he is not working on the Kashmir issue even as he keeps India closely informed of his effort in the region where "India is hugely important factor." "Let me be very clear. I am not working on that problem," he said at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think tank, when asked by a Pakistani journalist if the Obama administration was serious about appointing an adviser to resolve the Kashmir issue.

By IRNA, Berlin : A massive fire swept through a quarantine area at Berlin's Tegel Airport Thursday morning, leading to numerous flight disruptions, media reports said. The animal quarantine station was empty at the time of the fire breakout. There were no immediate reports of any injuries. The exact cause of the fire was not known yet. Initial reports said the fire engulfed the military section of Tegel airport. Berlin has two airports, Tegel and Schoenefeld.

By DPA, San Francisco : Internet giant Google said Tuesday that it was evaluating whether to continue doing business in China, after discovering attacks on email accounts belonging to human-rights activists. Servers from Google and other Western companies were targeted last month in an attempt to hack into email accounts of Chinese human-rights activists, among others, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond wrote in a company blog.

Georgetown : The release of official results from Guyana's May 11 general elections has been delayed for at least another 48 hours to allow...

By IANS, New Delhi : India Tuesday urged Sri Lanka to work out "appropriate and credible procedures" to evacuate civilians from the war zone through land and sea routes and said it was ready to provide medical help to the wounded. "We have requested the Sri Lankan government to facilitate the evacuation of civilians to safe zones through sea and land routes in the presence of international observers," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha.

By EFE, Rio de Janeiro : Six top samba schools at the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro have got members of the public moving to the beat with shows that last until dawn. The audience Monday included Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The first night of parades of the Special Group schools kicked off with the parade of the Imperio Serrano school entitled The legend of sirens and the mysteries of the sea and closed with the presentation of Unidos da Tijuca and its vision of the fascination that space exercises on the human mind, with the first rays of sunlight.

By DPA, Copenhagen : The mammoth UN conference in Copenhagen 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".

Islamabad : The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif will definitely augur well for the foreign secretaries' level talks...

By DPA, Vienna : Many aspects of a proposed multilateral deal to process Iran's nuclear fuel abroad remained unresolved as delegations began a third day of talks at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna Wednesday. The previous day's round was overshadowed by official comments from Tehran that it did not want to negotiate with France, but only with Russia and the US, the two other parties at the Vienna talks.

Washington: An influential body of Indian American physicians will hold its annual convention in San Antonio, Texas, in June focusing on how to enhance...

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev voiced alarm over the United States' increasing tendency to seek military solutions to political problems, in an appeal to presidential candidates published on Tuesday. "I am deeply concerned over increasingly visible signs of the militarization of politics and thinking in the modern world... even though the military route again and again leads to a dead-end," Gorbachev wrote in an article printed in the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

By DPA, Washington : Heavy rains overnight triggered flash floods in the US state of Arkansas, killing at least 20 people at a popular camping area, state officials said Friday. "There are some children among the deceased," said Tommy Jackson of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, but he couldn't provide an exact number. Scores of others are believed to be injured, trapped or remain missing near the Albert Pike camp ground near the rain-swollen Little Missouri river in western Arkansas, local TV station KARK reported.

By IANS, Panama City : A powerful earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale struck the Panama-Costa Rica border region Wednesday, but there were no reports of casulties or serious damages, EFE news agency reported. According to the Geoscience Institute at Panama University, the quake took place 10 km below ground at around 1:10 a.m., and its epicentre was traced to 220 southeast of San Jose, Costa Rica and 55km southwest of Panama's third largest city David.

New Jersey: A New Jersey court has sentenced last of five men charged with the 2010 fatal beating of an Indian-American computer scientist Divyendu...

By Prensa Latina, Beijing : Two large solar power plants will be built in the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Yunnan this year, as part of a nationwide project to boost renewable energy. Qinghai's solar station will cost 146 million dollars and will be jointly built by China Technology Development Group and Qinghai New Energy Group. In the beginning, the plant will generate 30 megawatts, but after completion, it will produce one gigawatt and will be the world's largest solar power plant, investors said.

Tokyo : Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an offering to the notorious war-linked Yasukuni Shrine Monday during its three-day spring festival. The sacrifice came...

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Bishkek: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the deadly bombing of the Boston marathon, was born in Kyrgyzstan but left the country in 2001, a minister said.

By DPA, Seoul : North Korea Saturday test fired three short-range missiles, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. Two of the firings were apparently not successful. The missiles, with a reach of 45 km, were aimed toward North Korea and were not interpreted as a provocation against South Korea. South Korean officials said it apparently involved a routine test of rockets from the outmoded North Korean arsenal.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS Kathmandu : A year after Nepal's parliament officially declared the country -- once the world's only Hindu kingdom -- secular, Hinduism effectively remains the state religion with the declaration being mere lip service to appease protesters. Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world where villages still don't have roads, electricity and running water, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's government spent more than Nepali Rs.10 million during the 10-day Dashain festival alone, considered the kingdom's biggest Hindu ceremony.

Shanghai : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday left here for Mongolia, on the second leg of his three-nation tour. It is the first...

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: The Russian economy could slip into recession this coming fall unless measures to stimulate growth are urgently implemented, Economy Minister Andrei Belousov said.

By DPA, New York : US stocks posted gains Thursday amid a drop in long-term borrowing costs, a rise in oil prices and improving US retail sales. The stock gains sent the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to its highest level of 2009. The Dow Jones Industrial Average remains slightly down on the year. The price of crude oil climbed above $73 per barrel for the first time in seven months after the International Energy Agency raised its forecasts for global demand. The oil price eventually settled at $71.50, up nearly one percent on the day, spurring a rally in energy shares.

By RIA Novosti, Caracas : Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), will sign a "strategic" cooperation agreement with Russian oil and gas companies to create a join energy consortium, the Venezuelan energy minister said Monday. The bilateral cooperation agreement is expected to be signed during a two-day visit to Venezuela by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Wednesday, said Rafael Ramirez, who also heads state-owned PDVSA.

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By Xinhua Seoul : South Korea Monday welcomed the agreement reached between North Korea and the US under which Pyongyang is to close down its nuclear weapons programme by the end of 2007. "The denuclearisation agreement between North Korea and the US is a part of the ongoing Korean peninsula peace process that would extend to the South Korea-US summit, the six-party talks and the inter-Korean summit," South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's spokesman Cheon Ho-seon told reporters Monday.

By Xinhua Lagos : US President George W. Bush has said that the purpose of the new Africa Command (Africom) was not to build new military bases, the News Agency of Nigeria reported. "We do not contemplate adding new bases, in other words the purpose of this is not to add military bases," Bush was quoted as saying Wednesday at a news conference in Accra, the capital of Ghana, during his fourth leg of five-nation African tour.

By DPA, Washington : The US plans to ship 500,000 tonnes of food to North Korea within the next year after Pyongyang asked for help to address food shortage crisis, the US government said Friday. The US agreed to resume shipments for the first time in about three years after North Korea agreed to allow more stringent monitoring to ensure the food reaches the the right people, the US Agency for International Development said. The US government will begin the yearlong shipments in June after North Korea "explained to the United States that it faces a major shortfall in food supplies."

By IANS, London : University degrees no longer offer advantage in the workplace and are now may not be worth paying for, many middle class parents in Britain say.

By DPA, Kabul: The number of opium and heroin users in Afghanistan has risen 75 percent in the past five years, as total users of illegal drugs reached one million, a UN survey released Monday found. There are at least 350,000 heroin and opium addicts in the country, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its 2010 Drug Use Survey, last published in 2005.

Islamabad: At least 19 terrorists and seven soldiers were killed on Monday in suicide attack and the ensuing gun battle between security forces and...

By DPA, Brussels : The medicine recommended by US President Barack Obama to cut Wall Street down to size is not suitable for the European Union EU), the bloc's finance ministers are expected to say in a report set for approval Tuesday. The White House has endorsed Jan 21 former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's proposals to limit the size of banks, ban them from investing in hedge funds and exclude them from proprietary trading, or trading on their own accounts.

By IANS, Dharamsala/Washington : China's offer to talk to the Dalai Lama's representative has been accepted by the Tibetan government-in-exile with the condition that there has to be "normalcy" in Tibet before meetings take place. The US has welcomed Beijing's initiative to end the crisis. Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has made it clear that he welcomes China's offer to meet his representatives in the wake of international pressure that followed anti-Beijing riots in Tibet capital Lhasa.

By RIA Novosti, Buenos Aires : At least eight people were killed and 12 injured in Colombia when a bus carrying 20 passengers skidded off a mountainous road into a ravine, the Caracol TV channel said Tuesday. The accident happened when the bus driver lost control of his vehicle on a slippery road near the town of Guayabetal, some 80 km east of the capital Bogota. According to official statistics, over 5,000 people die in traffic accidents in the South American country each year.

By IANS, Los Angeles: Singer Beyonce has reportedly splashed three million pounds on a watch, which she presented to husband Jay-Z as a birthday gift.

By NNN-APP, United Nations : U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is planning to convene a summit meeting of world leaders to discuss how to deal with the growing food crisis around the globe, his spokesperson said. “Yes, that is exactly what he is considering,” spokesperson Michele Montas said when asked whether the UN chief plans to hold a top-level global gathering to find ways to respond to the severe problems of food availability and high prices that have spawned protests and tensions in many countries.

By IANS, Rome: Scientists have discovered the world's oldest blood cells in the remains of a 5,300-year-old iceman found in Italy.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Kiev : At least five people were killed and 13 injured after a plane carrying parachute-jumpers crashlanded outside the Ukrainian capital Sunday, officials said.

By IANS/EFE, Buenos Aires: Hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets in different parts of the country to protest President Cristina Fernandez's policies.

By DPA, Athens: More than 100 youth were detained after clashes with riot police and five Italians and four Greeks were arrested, reports said Saturday. The clashes come a day before the first anniversary of a police shooting of a teenager, which sparked the country's worst riots in decades. The arrests and detentions took place after police were attacked with petrol bombs in central Athens and dozens of cars were set ablaze following a rally near the site where the teenager was shot Dec 6, 2008.

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By IANS, London : Religious organizations can now place anti-abortion advertisements on Google after a lawsuit by a British pro-life charity forced it to lift the ban. Google settled out of court Wednesday with The Christian Institute, a UK-based charity, and will now allow religious groups to place factual and campaigning ads about abortion. The new policy will apply world-wide with immediate effect. The Institute lost no time in placing its first advertisement on the website.

By IANS Toronto : Anti obesity drugs are no substitute for a healthy diet and lifestyle for those who want to lose weight, scientists in Canada have found. Researchers at the University of Alberta reviewed the evidence from thirty trials involving nearly 20,000 people who took one of three anti-obesity drugs -- orlistat, sibutramine or rimonabant -- for a year or longer. They found that in many cases the pills achieved little in terms of weight loss, reported the online edition of BBC News.

By DPA, Harare/Johannesburg : A court in Zimbabwe has cleared the way for a controversial recount of votes cast in last month's presidential elections as embattled President Robert Mugabe lashed out at what he called Britain's attempt to "steal" back the country. The high court in Harare Friday rejected an application by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to halt the partial recount of votes from the March 29 vote Saturday, in the second legal setback for the MDC in less than a week.

By IANS, Toronto : The ringleader of an Al Qaeda linked group that plotted attacks on Canada has pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy. Zakaria Amara, 24, who had planned to flee to Pakistan after carrying out the bombings, is the fourth member of the so-called Toronto-18 group to plead guilty to the plot. The plot was unearthed in June 2006 with the arrest of 18 Canadian Muslims linked to the Al Qaeda.

By IANS, New Delhi : A day after India and Russia inked a civil nuclear accord that envisages Russia building four additional reactors in Tamil Nadu, Russian ambassador to India Vyacheslav Trubnikov Saturday raised the stakes saying that his country was capable of supplying 10 more reactors to India. "We are capable of supplying 10 more nuclear plants," the envoy replied when asked whether Russia had discussed new sites for the construction of Russian-design nuclear power plants with India. "It's for the Indian government to decide," he said.

By Bernama Seoul : Absentee voting for next week's parliamentary elections has begun across South Korea with some 825,000 registered voters poised to cast ballots, Yonhap news agency quoted election officials as saying here on Thursday. Of the 37.8 million eligible voters for the April 9 elections, 825,658, or 2.2 percent, have registered to cast absentee ballots from 10 a.m. Thursday through 4 p.m. Friday, the National Election Commission said. "The voting is proceeding smoothly thus far," an election official said.

By Xinhua, Phnom Penh : The Cambodian and Thai governments will have a top meeting to solve the matter of nearly 200 Thai troops stationed inside a Cambodian pagoda 200 meters away from the Preah Vihear Temple, a Cambodian official said here on Wednesday. The border committees of both countries will have a top meeting as soon as possible to solve the problem of Thai troops who went into a pagoda on Cambodian territory without moving back, Khieu Kanharith, Cambodian Minister of Information and government spokesman, told reporters in a press conference.

By IANS, Sydney : Researchers have developed maths-based imaging technology to measure hair on different parts of the human body. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Biotech Imaging team, which specialises in developing software to analyse images automatically, worked with a British company to find a way to test how well their hair removal products work.

By IANS, Tegucigalpa : Twenty inmates of a jail in northern Honduras died Thursday when fights broke out over control of the prison cells.

By Xinhua Washington : The US House of Representatives passed a revised defence authorisation bill after President George W. Bush vetoed the original one that drew complaints from the Iraqi government. Those complaints prompted Bush to veto the original defence bill last month. He said a provision in the bill, which would allow victims of terrorism to be awarded compensation from frozen foreign assets of "state sponsors of terror", could have crippled the fledgling Iraqi government with billions of US dollars in liability.

Gothenburg, Sep 13(DPA) Swedish carmaker Volvo has announced what it claims is the world's first on-board system designed to alert tired and distracted drivers. Volvo says the system uses sensors to assess the impact that fatigue or loss of driving control has on a car's movements rather than monitoring driver behaviour, which can vary from one person to another.

London: An Indian-origin businessman in Britain, accused of arranging the murder of his wife during a honeymoon trip to Cape Town, will be extradited...

By IANS, Colombo : Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has alleged that many "internal and external elements" were bent on halting the ongoing military action against the Tamil Tiger rebels and "have already begun to create political unrest" in the island nation. He, however, stopped short of naming those elements.

By IANS, Washington : The United States will create a new military command to coordinate the defence of Pentagon computer networks and improve offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The initiative will reshape the military's efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia, the influential daily said citing unnamed "current and former officials familiar with the plans."

By DPA, Colombo : A Canadian parliamentarian is to be deported from Sri Lanka on the grounds that he was a sympathiser of the Tamil rebel movement, senior government officials said Wednesday. Bob Rae, who arrived from the Indian city of Chennai, was detained at Sri Lanka's Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo, before the government decided the Ontario politician should be sent back to Chennai.

By IANS/EFE, Mexico City: Mexico's Senate passed a long-awaited bill to address money laundering, which is estimated to be a $12 billion a year business.

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By IANS, Moscow : Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday praised the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for strengthening global security.

By P. Karunakharan, IANS, Kilinochchi : Sri Lanka's feared Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is still holed up in a coastal strip in the north and has told his cadres that he will fight on, an army commander said Friday. Quoting the confession of a Tiger leader who surrendered two days ago, Brigadier Shavendra Silva told reporters that the cream of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was also with the elusive Prabhakaran in Mullaitivu district.

Paris: France and Saudi Arabia vowed stronger defence ties to fight terrorism and to tackle the threat posed by the militants of Islamic State...

By DPA, Tokyo : Sanyo Electric Co lowered its projections for operating profit and sales for the fiscal year 2008 that ends in March owing to the yen's advance and declining sales of electronics parts and semiconductors, the company said Thursday. The Japanese home electronics maker revised downward its operating profit to 30 billion yen ($335.78 million) from an earlier projection of 50 billion yen. Sanyo revised sales down to 1.9 trillion yen from 2.02 trillion yen.

By IANS/AKI, Belgrade: Over 700,000 people attended the Belgrade beer fest last week, and Spanish brand Corona was voted the best beer, organisers said.

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By Bernama Manila : Developing Asian economies may fail to reap the "demographic dividend" if they do not invest enough in their education and training systems, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Wednesday. In its flagship publication, Asian Development Outlook 2008, the Manila-based development bank said developing Asia is passing through a demographic phase that has a high share of young adults in the total population. This "youth bulge" has the potential to stimulate economic growth through productive employment, asset creation, and investment.

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By Xinhua Rio De Janeiro : Brazil and Germany have signed an agreement to develop a night-vision radar satellite to monitor the Amazon region, the National Space Research Institute (INPE) has said. According to the terms of the agreement signed last Monday, the satellite will be launched by 2013, the INPE said Sunday after signing the agreement. The INPE plans to build the Multiple Application Synthetic Aperture Radar with the help of the German space centre over 18 months. This is the second satellite project undertaken by the two nations.

By DPA, Washington : US stocks rose Friday following a dip in commodity prices that boosted retailers like Wal-Mart Stores. The Standard & Poor 500 rose 5.27 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,298.2. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 43.97 points, or 0.4 percent, to 11,659.9. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell by 1.15 points to 2,452.52. The US currency reached a five-and-a-half-month high against the euro, rising to 68.08 euro cents from 67.55 Thursday. The dollar gained against the Japanese currency to 110.53 yen from 109.78 yen on Thursday.

By DPA, Kyoto (Japan) : Strong criticism of Zimbabwe's "sham" elections and hopes for progress on North Korea's denuclearization set the tone Friday at the final day of the Kyoto meeting of the foreign ministers of the world's seven leading economies and Russia. Heated debates among the Group of Eight (G8) foreign ministers preceded an unplanned statement on the Zimbabwe presidential election run-off, diplomats said.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Athens : The conservative New Democracy party is leading at the pivotal parliamentary elections in Greece, the interior ministry said Sunday.

By IANS, Colombo : A powerful bomb, apparently triggered by a suicide bomber, exploded in the heart of Colombo during rush hour Friday morning, killing and wounding an unspecified number of people. Military officials and witnesses said the deafening blast took place near Hotel Hilton, in the commercial district of the Sri Lankan capital. The attack was apparently targeted at a police bus that was passing by. Ambulances quickly evacuated the wounded to hospitals.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

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