International

By IANS, Jakarta : Ten gold mine workers were killed when their helicopter crashed in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province, an official said Thursday.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : The rate of teenage suicides in Russia was declining but excessive media coverage portrays it as a growing trend, experts have said.

Bangkok : Thailand's Appeals Court Thursday upheld a suspended six-month jail term for pro-government protest leader Jatuporn Prompan for defaming former prime minister Abhisit...

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS Kathmandu : With Nepal's ruling parties and the Maoists failing to reach an understanding during the 10-day reprieve to their historic battle in parliament, a fresh feud is on the cards when the winter session resumes Thursday. Though former American president Jimmy Carter had flown in to Kathmandu last month to propose a compromise and push the stalled peace process forward, the adversaries have refused to budge from their stands.

By IANS, Paris : French President Nicolas Sarkozy Sunday said that Europe's border-free Schengen agreement should be rethought and re-founded.

By IANS, Washington : The world's first 'synthetic tree,' created by Abraham Stroock's lab, mimics the process of transpiration that helps move moisture to the highest branches. The researchers' work bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants through capilliary action, is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy. It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.

By DPA, Kampala/Washington : The one-time Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army killed at least 321 civilians in a four-day rampage in northeastern Congo late in 2009, Human Rights Watch said early Sunday in Kampala. The killings took place between December 14 to 17 in the remote Makombo area of Haute Uele district, but had not been reported previously, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The rights group's investigators documented the killings during a visit to the massacre area in February.

By IANS Sao Paulo : Nine people were killed and 24 injured Thursday in a bus accident in Brazil, EFE news agency reported. The incident occurred on the Via Dutra highway in Sao Paulo state when the driver of the vehicle lost control, Globo TV reported. Seven passengers were pronounced dead at the accident spot while one person died en route to the hospital and one succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. Three passengers were unhurt as they had their seatbelts fastened, police said.

By DPA, Hamburg/Rome : An Italian cruise ship carrying 1,200 passengers was able to fend off a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, according to media reports Sunday. MS Melody, chartered by the Italian cruise company MSC Crociere S.A., was attacked late Saturday by six pirates wielding Kalashnikov machine guns. Security forces on board returned fire, while the captain tried to out-manoeuvre the attackers, Italian news agency ANSA reported. Initial reports of the attack came from a German passenger, who phoned Spiegel news magazine.

By Bernama, Moscow : A transport plane of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry delivered humanitarian aid to the quake-hit China, the Ministry's information department told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. "An Il-76 plane bringing tents, blankets and mattresses, weighing 30 tonnes arrived in the Chinese town of Chengdu at 11:00,Moscow time on Wednesday," an emergency official said. Russia became one of the first countries to provide humanitarian aid to China.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

By RIA Novosti, Buenos Aires : A total of 13 people were burned alive in northeast Venezuela when the bus they were travelling in overturned and caught fire, national radio reported on Monday. Some 14 survivors were rushed to hospital with various burn injuries. All the victims were relatives travelling to a local beach. According to police information, the driver lost control of the vehicle following heavy rain.

By DPA, Beijing : Envoys from North Korea and five other nations began a new round of talks Monday here to persuade North Korea to quit its nuclear weapons programme. Ahead of a meeting of the chief negotiators, delegates from the United States, China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea started a series of bilateral talks.

Nay Pyi Taw: Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered in Myanmar capital, Nay Pyi Taw, for the meeting due...

By IANS, Toronto: An international study has found a molecule in H1N1, or swine flu, patients whose levels determine the severity of the illness or even death. Canadian and Spanish scientists have found this molecule called Interleukin 17 (IL-17) to be the first potential immunological clue of why some people develop severe pneumonia when infected by the H1N1 virus. The study was carried in 10 Spanish hospitals during the first pandemic wave in July and August this year.

By IANS, Kathmandu : With a constitutional crisis and president's rule threatening Nepal, its former Maoist guerrillas Sunday began an indefinite general strike paralysing the entire nation after talks with the ruling parties failed and embattled Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal refused to quit. While the capital remained largely peaceful, sporadic violence was reported across the nation as protesters clashed with security forces, attacked at least one government office and sought to prevent a major high school examination from being held.

By Xinhua Bucharest : Unites States President George W. Bush arrived in Bucharest on Tuesday afternoon, for an official visit in Romania and to attend the NATO summit held in the eastern European country. The NATO summit is to take place in Bucharest on April 2-4, with the enlargement, operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo as its main topics.

By IANS,

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin estimated on Monday that the damage to South Ossetia following Georgia's attack on the breakaway republic is around $1 billion. Summing up a report on the situation in the Georgia's self-proclaimed republic, submitted by Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak, Putin said: "More than $1 billion. This is the tentative cost of the damage caused by the act of aggression." Georgia attacked South Ossetia on August 8 in an attempt to take back the separatist republic, which split from Georgia in the early 1990s.

By DPA, Sydney : The body count reached 166 Tuesday, more than doubling the death toll from Australia's previous worst forest fires in 1983. Authorities in the south coast city of Melbourne warned the death toll would continue to climb as army bulldozers cleared a path for forensic teams to enter hamlets cut off by Saturday's inferno. In tiny Strathewen, which only had a population of 450, at least 26 people were killed when the fire-front raced through. Forest fires, which are common in the torrid southern hemisphere summer, claimed 75 people in 1983.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : While Nepal's dethroned king Gyanendra has just 72 hours to vacate the royal palace, former queen mother Ratna Shah will stay on. She has wrested permission from the government despite growing public anger against the privileges of the erstwhile royal family. Gyanendra's 80-year-old stepmother, once the most powerful woman in the kingdom and a resident of the Narayanhity royal palace through the reign of four kings in succession, will not have to quit her quarters inside the sprawling palace, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's government said.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : Signalling a major shift in the US stand towards BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, US Ambassador to India...

By DPA Brasilia : The Brazilian bar association has proposed the creation of an international tribunal to fight deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian media reported. "Allowing Amazonia to be devastated, as is happening at great pace, is committing a crime against humanity," the Order of Brazilian Lawyers president Cezar Britto said in a statement issued Friday.

By Sudeshna Sarkar,IANS, Kathmandu : Nepal's Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda Friday dropped a new bomb shell, alleging that there was a link between the bloodbath in the royal palace in 2001 that wiped out the king, queen and the entire royal family, and a chopper crash five months later in which the slain queen's youngest sister was killed.

By KUNA Berlin : Hurricane Emma which has hit Europe yesterday killing 11 among them four in Bavaria south of Germany is expected to continue, the German Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst) in Offenbach said on Sunday. Helmut Malewski from Wetterdienst said in television statements that the powerful storm with winds exceeding more than 120 kilometers an hour has also caused major material damage estimated to be worth millions of euros.

By DPA, Singapore : A woman eager to show her son how donations are made turned over 100,000 Singapore dollars ($74,000) for victims of the cyclone in Myanmar, the Sunday Times said. In her 40s, the woman went to the Red Cross House and asked how she could help. She then took out of her handbag a wad of 1,000-Singapore-dollar ($740) notes, totaling 50,000 Singapore dollars ($37,000), tied together with a rubber band. While the workers were thanking her, the woman took out another wad, saying: "Here's another 50,000."

By IANS, Beijing : The toll in a colliery accident in southwest China's Sichuan province Saturday rose to 28 after an injured miner died, authorities said Sunday.

By Fakir Hassen, IANS, Johannesburg: Relieved South African cricket fans have welcomed the news that international games will return to the premiere Wanderers Stadium here after Cricket South Africa (CSA) earlier banned games there in the wake of a dispute with the provincial Gauteng Cricket Board (GCB), which controls the venue. The three forthcoming matches against England, which were rescheduled to other stadiums across the country, have been reinstated after the resolution of the dispute following intervention by Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile.

By IANS/EFE,

By IANS, London : Five Muslim men in Britain have been charged with distributing leaflets calling for gay people to be executed.

By DPA, Sydney: Oliver Zammit, scheduled to be best man at an Australian wedding next month, expects to hand over the rings in a Sydney church knowing that his son's heart is beating inside the bridegroom beside him, news reports said Wednesday. Zammit's son, Doujon, was 20 when his life support was turned off in an Athens hospital last year. On holiday in Greece, he was critically injured in an assault at a night club.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington: Battling the worst recession in decades, the US government expects unemployment to stay at or above 9 percent until 2012 even as the economy grows by at least 4 percent in 2011 and 2012. New projections contained in the administration's Mid-Session Budget Review released by the White House Friday, also show the US National Debt doubling between now and 2020 when it's forecast to hit over $26 trillion.

By Joydeep Gupta, IANS, Punta del Este (Uruguay) : People are justified in being disappointed with the last climate summit in Copenhagen, but their leaders must ensure this frustration does not paralyse negotiations for a global climate deal, cautions UN Environment Programme (UNEP) chief Achim Steiner.