International

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By DPA, Washington : The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank began their annual spring meetings Saturday in the midst of a deep global recession, seeking more funds and aid to help countries that can't manage the economic crisis on their own. The IMF, whose decision-making board was meeting Saturday, is hoping to win new pledges from countries for funds. Leaders at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in London promised $500 billion for the IMF's lending resources, which would triple its existing budget.

San Francisco, Sep 26 (DPA) In the annals of online music, there have been hundreds of so-called iPod killers that have tried to challenge Apple's shiny music players and the company's equally dominant iTunes music store. Unfortunately, almost all of them died a quick death before they even put a scratch on their targets. But that hasn't stopped others trying. The latest hopeful goes by the name of SpiralFrog and aims to unseat Apple by offering free legal downloads of millions of tracks.

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By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : As Nepal began celebrating its Hindu festival of Diwali with five days' festivities, the Himalayan republic's power-strapped government is appealing to the nation to go slow on lights, one of the main accessories of the festival. Currently reeling under a three to five hours' power outage daily and the closure of nearly 200 small to medium-scale industries due to the power crisis, the state-run Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has issued an appeal to consumers not to light electric lamps as these would further pressure the reeling power supply.

By SPA, London : Millions of London voters were going to the polls on Thursday to choose a new mayor who will command a multi-billion pound budget and help prepare the capital for the 2012 Olympics, Reuters reported. After months of increasingly bitter campaigning, polling stations opened at 7.a.m. and the three main candidates cast their votes at schools around the city. Current mayor Ken Livingstone voted near his home in Cricklewood, northwest London, while his Conservative rival Boris Johnson visited a polling station in Islington with his wife, Marina.

By IANS, Sydney : Manufacturing activity in Australia remained flat in November, a monthly survey of manufacturers in the country showed Thursday.

By DPA, Seoul : Warships belonging to North and South Korea clashed off their west coast Tuesday, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported, citing a defence official in Seoul. A North Korean patrol ship crossed the Northern Limit Line, the countries' disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea, prompting a naval vessel from the South to fire warning shots, the unnamed official told Yonhap. The North Korean ship returned fire near Baekryeong Island, he said, adding that while it apparently was damaged, there were no immediate reports of South Korean casualties.

By IINA, Washington : As of Wednesday, at least 4,209 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,397 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: Russia will deploy its newest medium-weight solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in 2014, a military source said.

By IANS, Paris : French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will abandon his political career if he fails to win a second mandate as president in the upcoming elections.

By IANS, Bogota : At least 20,000 people have been displaced in the latest flooding in northern Colombia already ravaged by an unusually long and disastrous rainy season, EFE reported Monday. The city of Plato in Magdalena province, some 900 km north of Bogota, was flooded when the Magdalena river broke through a levee, inundating the entire metropolis and many neighbouring areas, Mayor Jose Santander Rosales said. Colombia's rainy season, which started in mid-September, has lasted longer than usual, killing more than 60 people and affecting about one million.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : US home sales plunged to their lowest level in 15 years, leading economists to warn that a likely double-dip in housing prices could further slow America's recovery from its worst downturn in decades. Existing home sales sank 27.2 percent in July, twice as much as analysts expected, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday, the lowest level since the industry group started its tally in 1999.

Hanoi : The number of people killed by typhoon Rammasun in Vietnam has risen to 17, officials said Monday. According to flood control officials, of...

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By IANS, Sanaa: Indian Nagarjuna Construction Company is seeking to invest $1.2 billion in Yemen, Yemeni official agency Saba reported.

By Xinhua Ankara : Ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party Chairman and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday the closure case was a move against national will, not against AK Party, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported. Chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya filed a lawsuit to close the AK Party Friday, saying "the party has become the focal point of anti-secular activities." "We are a political party struggling for democracy," Erdogan was quoted as saying at his party meeting in southeastern province of Siirt.

By IANS, Copenhagen : Around 150,000 deaths now occur in low-income countries each year due to climate change that causes crop failure and malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria and flooding, says the World Health Organisation (WHO). "Almost 85 percent of these excess deaths are among young children," WHO spokesperson Sari Setiogi said Thursday. Health hazards from climate change are diverse, global and difficult to reverse over human time scales, WHO experts said at the Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions conference here, according to Setiogi.

By IRNA Berlin : Anti-atomic power activists on Wednesday evening blocked for several hours a train carrying radioactive material near the northwest German town of Burgsteinfurt, news reports said Thursday. A 26-year-old female environment activist let herself down a rope which was tied to a tree and was hovering seven meters above the rail tracks, a spokesman for the federal police announced. A police helicopter notified the train driver to halt the train in time. Special police forces freed the environment activist and removed her from the scene.

By KUNA, PARIS : The business climate in European nations continued to deteriorate in March but at a slower pace than in February, although the outlook is still bleak for European business, Frances National Statistics Institute (INSEE) said in a report Tuesday. Some improvement was noted in Belgium, and there was relative stability in France and Germany, but the business climate in Spain and Holland worsened, the report said.

By Xinhua, Kampala : Uganda and Ethiopia denied accusations by a UN panel that their troops in Somalia have been selling weapons to local insurgents. Earlier this week, a UN panel had accused Ugandan officers in the African Union peacekeeping force, which also groups Ethiopian and Somali commanders, of selling weapons to Islamist rebels in violation of a 1992 arms embargo. The UN panel has been in Somalia reviewing the 1992 arms embargo placed on the country after it descended into anarchy following the ouster of military strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.

By IANS, Washington: The US ramped up security measures ahead of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks Tuesday, said the White House Monday.

By Xinhua, Manila : Opponents on Monday filed another impeachment against Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the fourth one during her presidency over the past years. The case was filed by a group led by Joey de Venecia III, son of former House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., before the Secretary General's office at the Philippine House of Representatives. The Philippine law allows only one impeachment bid each year against the President and the previous one-year period lapsed last weekend, De Venecia told reporters.

By SPA, Taipei, Taiwan : Taiwanese officials say the death toll from flash floods triggered by tropical storm Kalmaegi has climbed to 19. The disaster relief center lists another six people as missing in its Sunday report. The storm lashed southern Taiwan with torrential rains Friday, triggering flash floods and landslides. On Sunday, the death toll was raised from 13 to 19. The center said mudslides buried two houses in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, killing seven people. Most others were washed away by rampaging waters.

Beijing:Authorities in southwest China said they are checking the losses after a 5.3-magnitude quake jolted a town early Saturday, Xinhua reported. The tremor hit Yongshan...

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Vladivostok : A senior North Korean navy official will start Thursday an official visit to Russia's Pacific Fleet.

By DPA, Washington : Former US first lady Barbara Bush, 83, underwent tests at hospital after she complained of stomach pains, CNN reported. Bush, who is also the mother of the current US President George W. Bush, was hospitalised in Houston, Texas Tuesday night, the broadcaster reported, quoting a family spokeswoman. Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Bush's husband, former president George H.W. Bush, told CNN that the tests were negative and she was due to be released Wednesday.

By RIA Novosti Moscow : Lawyers for a Russian businessman who is being held in Thailand on charges of illegal arms trading are to demand his extradition to Russia, his lawyer told a Moscow-based radio station on Friday. Viktor Bout, 41, is a former lieutenant in the Russian military who quit the armed forces in 1991. He then allegedly transformed himself into an international arms dealer.

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London : Parts of Britain, Germany and Switzerland were left flooded Sunday, Denmark and Sweden braced for very heavy rainfall, while a tornado hit Poland and the heat wave continued in eastern and southwest Europe.

Parts of the English Midlands and areas to the west were left paralysed by floods Sunday, as helicopters were called in to rescue the stranded, and drinking water threatened to run out in one area.

By IANS, Yaounde (Cameroon) : Twenty-eight people were killed and several others were seriously injured when a passenger bus collided head-on with a truck in Cameroon, Xinhua reported Monday.

By KUNA, GAZA : Martyr Ezz Eddin Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, on Tuesday launched several mortar missiles at an Israeli special force in central Gaza Strip. The Israeli force was trying to advance into eastern al-Maghazi refugee camp at the heart of the Strip, the armed wing said in a release handed out here, a copy of which was obtained by Kuwait News Agency (KUNA). It said one of its combat groups "had fired 18 mortar missiles at an Israeli force making incursions into eastern al-Maghazi refugee camp in the center of the Strip".

By Irfan Mohammed Jeddah : As India said it will try to bring back over 10,000 Indians rendered jobless in the Gulf, the Indian...

By Xinhua Changsha (China) : At least 15 people have been killed and 25 injured when a bus rammed into the rear of a tanker, triggering a fire and an explosion in central China's Hunan province, authorities said. The accident occurred at around 7.00 p.m. Monday at Chenzhou city on the north-south freeway connecting Beijing and Zhuhai cities, according to the traffic police. The blaze engulfed three more vehicles, a police spokesperson said. Traffic on the Beijing-Zhuhai freeway was stopped temporarily because of the accident.

By DPA

Madrid : Thierry Henry has finally signed for FC Barcelona - exactly a year after turning down the Catalan giants.