International

By ANTARA News Sydney : An Australian woman who had a child with her father pleaded for acceptance of their illicit love as the couple and their baby girl appeared on national television after being convicted of incest. Jenny Deaves was 31 when she was reunited with her father John Deaves, who separated from her mother three decades before. Shortly afterwards, she had considered embarking on a sexual relationship with him, she was quoted by AFP as telling the Nine Network.

By DPA, Hamburg: Holders Werder Bremen were drawn to play at home at last in the German cup, against second division St Pauli Hamburg in the second round. Bremen have not hosted a Cup match since beating MSV Duisburg in the second round in October 2007. They had to play all matches on the road en route to the Berlin final last season in which they defeated Bayer Leverkusen 1-0. Bayern Munich also enjoyed a lucky draw Saturday night for the second round set for September 22 and 23, against second division Rot-Weiss Oberhausen.

By IANS, Guwahati: Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley Sunday said the Himalayan nation would not allow any Indian militant groups to once again set up bases in the country.

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 Joydeep Gupta, IANS, Poznan (Poland) : Climate change is already drowning homes of people in coastal areas, especially in the developing world. The money available to them from the international community to adapt to a new life is less than a percent of what the UN says will be needed. And now countries are bickering over who will administer this small Adaptation Fund and who will be paid from it.

By IANS, Toronto : The Canadian House of Commons has become the first parliament in the world to pass a climate act, which commits the country to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. The House passed the Climate Change Accountability Bill Wednesday. It was moved by the leader of the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) Jack Layton. The two other opposition parties - the Liberal party and the Bloc Quebecois - supported the bill. "This is a world first," Layton said in a statement later.

By IANS, Kiev: At least 14 people were killed and 22 injured Saturday when a bus carrying Russian pilgrims to a monastery in Ukraine met with an accident, RIA Novosti reported.

By Xinhua Kathmandu : At least ten people were killed and 27 others were injured when a passenger bus caught fire in southern Nepal Friday, local media reported. At around 5:20 p.m. (GMT 1135), the bus caught fire when crossing over Pasaha river on the border of Bara and Rautahat districts, some 60 km south of capital Kathmandu, THT Online website reported. According to eyewitnesses, a loud explosion was heard before the bus caught fire. The police did not confirm the blast.

By EFE, Bogota : A stray bullet hit a young woman riding a Metrocable, a cable-car system in the northwestern Colombian city of Medellin, television stations reported. The woman was taken to a clinic after being hit in the leg Saturday and is in a stable condition. Residents said this was not the first time that a bullet had pierced a cable-car cabin in the area. "This was a case of shots being fired into the air by residents who were partying in the sector," the police commander in charge of security for Metrocable, Col. Edgar Moreno, told the El Tiempo newspaper.

By IANS, Brussels : A delegation from the European Parliament (EP), including seven deputies who were staying in one of the hotels that was attacked in Mumbai, are safe and will be returning home soon, an official said Thursday. "We are very much relieved that the French Consulate is now working in close cooperation with the European Parliament to ensure a quick return of the delegation of the European Parliament that was visiting Mumbai and was staying in one of the hotels that was attacked," said EP President Hans-Gert Poettering here Thursday, EuAsiaNews reported.

By Xinhua, Los Angeles : At least six people have been killed and dozens injured when a passenger train collided with a goods train here in the US state of California, officials said. The accident occurred at 4.00 p.m. Friday. Officials said many people might be still trapped in the wreckage. There were 400 people onboard the passenger train when it collided with the goods train in the Chatsworth area, some 50 km northeast of downtown Los Angels. Meanwhile, the authorities have launched a massive rescue and search operation.

By IANS,

Brussels: The European Parliament Thursday urged the European Union (EU) to enforce sanctions against business bodies related to the Islamic State (IS) in a...

By DPA, Adelaide : Australian cyclist Allan Davis fancied his chances of keeping the race leader's ochre jersey in Friday's 143-kilometre fourth stage of the Tour Down Under. "If the chance arrives, I'll definitely have a crack, but the plan is to keep it simple," the 26-year-old said on the starting line. "Normal thing is a break will go with some guys who are lower on GC [general classification - or the leader board], and they'll contend the stage. Then we'll get ready for the big showdown tomorrow."

By DPA, Sydney: Searchers have found the wreckage of a plane chartered by an Australian mining company in West Africa, former Sundance Resources chairman George Jones said Tuesday. "We've been told by our operatives in Cameroon that the aircraft has been located, there are 11 bodies that have been found, and there are no survivors," Jones told Australia's ABC Radio. Jones said it was too early to say what caused the Casa C212 twin turbo-prop to go down in jungle halfway through a one-hour flight from Yaounde, the Cameroon capital, to Yangadou in the Congo Republic.

LONDON, Oct 7 (KUNA) -- Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision not to call an autumn election came as three separate opinion polls showed Sunday the opposition Conservatives had overturned the premier's "bounce" and raced into a lead. One survey of 83 crucial seats put Cameron's party an astonishing six points ahead - a finding that would have seen Labour's Commons majority wiped out.

Manila: The US and the Philippines signed an agreement Monday which will allow a larger presence of American troops in the military bases of...

By IANS, Beijing : A total of 55 people stranded on China's Xinjiang-Tibet highway since Tuesday following heavy snowfall have been rescued, a rescue team official said Thursday.

By IANS,

By IANS, London : A Roman Catholic leader in Britain has compared the paedophile scandal involving priests with the banking collapse that led to recession worldwide.

By IANS, Washington : A new coordinated set of rules to govern commercial and research activities in both of the highly fragile polar regions is urgently needed, according to experts meeting in Iceland for a UN-affiliated conference. Climate change is causing the ancient ice lid on the Arctic Ocean to disappear fast, creating new opportunities for fishers and resource companies, and opening a potential new, far shorter ocean route between Europe and Asia, with billions of dollars tied up in ice-class ships.

By Xinhua, Beijing : China's chief quality supervisor Li Changjiang stepped down Monday afternoon after at least four infants died and thousands fell ill in the wake of the contaminated baby food scandal. Li is the highest-ranking official to step down after the scandal shook the entire nation. Li was replaced by Wang Yong, former cabinet deputy secretary-general, as the director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ).

By KUNA, PARIS : Industrial production in France last December declined a provisional 2.8 percent on an adjusted basis, following a finalized 3.6 percent fall in November, the National Statistics Institute (INSEE) said Tuesday. The confirmed figure for November was higher than an original estimate of a 3.1 percent fall off in industrial production, INSEE noted. In energy, automobiles and aviation products are excluded from December's calculations; as INSEE remarked that the drop in industrial production is gauged at around 1.8 percent for that month.

By Xinhua Tokyo : Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decided Thursday to hold a presidential election on Sep 23 to pick a new party president to replace Shinzo Abe, who Wednesday expressed his intention to resign, Japanese media reported. The LDP made the decision on a general assembly of lawmakers from the party. Abe himself originally wanted to appear on the assembly to explain reasons of his resignation, but refrained from doing so on doctor's advice.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick wants the United States, India, and China to work with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy to come up with a compromise on the Doha round of world trade talks Brazil, a developing country that is both a major agricultural exporter and home to many poor farmers, can help, he said in a statement Monday. Indonesia and Australia may be in a position to contribute to a solution too.

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter, Mumbai: Amnesty International, a global Human Rights Watchdog has criticized solitary confinement of Zabiuddin Ansari,...

By DPA, Augsburg (Germany) : There is no proof that embattled German Bishop Walter Mixa sexually abused children, a prosecutor said Friday. However, new evidence has emerged relating to allegations that he physically beat children in his care in the past. Mixa, 69, who was Bishop of Augsburg, tended his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI last month, after admitting to having slapped teenagers in the face while he was a parish priest 20 to 30 years ago. He is also under investigation for having embezzled orphanage funds.

Astana: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday presented Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev a set of books relating to religions born in India. President...

Washington: An Indian origin man has been charged with simple assault for allegedly groping a sleeping fellow female passenger for about five minutes on...

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6 (APP): The goal of providing quality education for all children by 2015 will not be possible without an additional 18 million new teachers worldwide, the UN said Friday. The growing shortage of qualified teachers is the main challenge to the realisation of international education targets, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said in a message issued to mark World Teacher’s Day.

Moscow : BRICS countries may sign an agreement on greater economic integration in the next five years, Russia's First Deputy Economic Development Minister Alexei...

By IANS, Havana : Hundreds of Cubans are applying for Spanish citizenship as part of Madrid's new "law of grandchildren", which comes into force next week, EFE reported Saturday. The new law makes provision for grandchildren of Spaniards born in Spain or exiled during the regime of Spanish dictator late General Franco. According to estimates of the Spanish consulate in Havana, in the two or three years that the law will be in force, some 100,000 Cubans a year could obtain Spanish nationality.

By SPA, Washington : U.S. President George W. Bush signed protocols at a White House ceremony in Washington Friday that would allow Albania and Croatia to join NATO. Bush was joined by Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, secretary-general for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Voice of America reported. "We are now one major step nearer to welcoming into the alliance Albania and Croatia, two more countries who have demonstrated, by word and by deed, that they are willing and able to shoulder the responsibilities of NATO membership, " Bush said.

By Xinhua Beijing : The impact on China of a US economic slowdown could eventually lead to positive results for the Asian country, according to Chinese economists and analysts. The financial upheaval in the US will have a negative result on Chinese exports, said Wang Tongsan, director of the Institute of Quantitative and Technological Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Wang noted that "a drop of one percentage point in American gross domestic product would lead to a five percentage-point decline in the growth rate of Chinese exports."

By DPA,

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By IANS/EFE, Caracas : At least three prisoners died and four people were injured in a riot at a jail in Venezuela, authorities said.

By KUNA Brussels : EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson begins today, Thursday, a two day visit to Moscow, for talks that will focus on Russian WTO membership. Our priority must be to see Russia accede to the WTO which will be good for Russia, good for regional economic integration and good for the global trading system," said Mandelson before departing for Russia.

By DPA, Manila : The Philippine government on Wednesday rejected mounting calls for the immediate arrest of members of a prominent political family allegedly behind the massacre of 46 people. Presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde said investigators must build a strong case against the Ampatuan family, close allies of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, before any arrests could be made. "We have due process to be observed also, so let us allow the investigators on the ground to come up with a case through their investigation," he said.

By SPA Wellington : The New Zealand government advised its citizens on Saturday to avoid all non-essential travel to Tibet, saying there was a high risk to security in the capital Lhasa, reported dpa. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said New Zealanders already in Lhasa should stay indoors, avoid areas where protests are taking place and leave the city when it was safe to do so. The warnings followed reports that 10 people had been killed in anti-Chinese protests in Tibet.

By IANS, Dharamsala: The Tibetan government-in-exile based here Saturday expressed deep sorrow and grief over the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in an air crash in Russia. "We deeply express sorrow and grief over the demise of Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 130 others. We sympathies with the families of the victims and the people of Poland," Thubten Samphel, a spokesperson for the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, told IANS. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama met Kaczynski a number of times. The Dalai Lama visited Poland in 1993, 2000, 2008 and 2009.

By Arun Kumar,IANS, Washington : In addressing a joint session of the US Congress, President Barack Obama Tuesday followed a tradition started by George Washington who delivered the first "annual message" on Jan 8, 1790, at the Federal Hall in New York. Washington and his successor, John Adams, delivered their annual messages as speeches before Congress. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, discontinued this practice in 1801, saying the elaborate, formal ceremony - which included a "president's throne" - too closely resembled a king addressing his subjects.

By DPA, Tokyo: About 1,800 residents of a town that hosts a troubled nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan are migrating to a city near Tokyo, news reports said Saturday.

By DPA, Hanoi : Vietnam has protested a new Chinese law aimed at protecting the nation's islands, including the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, local media reported Wednesday. "Vietnam has time and again affirmed its sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos," Vietnam News quoted government spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga as saying. "All activities of other countries, including the promulgation of legal regulations relating to these archipelagos and Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf, are of no legal value."

By IANS, Kampala : More than 50 people were killed in landslides in eastern Uganda Monday, Xinhua reported.

By Parveen Chopra, IANS New York : The view of a majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal survey confirming the slide of the US into recession is supported by new data showing a sharp drop in retail sales last month. While President George W. Bush would go only as far as acknowledging that there was an economic slowdown, over 70 percent of the 55 economists in the Journal's periodic economic forecasting survey said the country was already in recession, the business daily reported Thursday.

By IANS, United Nations: The UN General Assembly has elected 15 countries, including India, to the Human Rights Council, filling the latest slate of rotating council candidates, Xinhua reported.

By SPA Shanghai : Five people were injured in an explosion and a subsequent fire caused by a gas leak near Shanghai's iconic Jinmao Tower in the city's Pudong New Area, Xinhua reported. The blast occurred at about 10 a.m. inside a vacant two-storey building slated for demolition about 30 meters from the tower, causing an open fire, the local public security bureau said.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, has approved amendments to the constitution extending the presidential term from four to six years and the lower house term from four to five years. The amendments were voted 144-1 with 126 votes needed for approval.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : A college teacher was arrested after a large amount of radioactive substances was found at his home, Russia's interior ministry said Monday.

Singapore : An Indian man was Tuesday sentenced to 31 months in jail for his involvement in the Dec 8, 2013, riots in this...

By IRNA, London : Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn has criticised US President Barack Obama for imposing extraterritorial sanctions against Iran, suggesting that they will be counter-productive. “Sanctions against Iran are not going to bring about any improvement in relations. They’re going to make it worse,” warned Corbyn, who also expressed hopes that the EU would be more independent and not follow suit. “The US is going way beyond what the UN is trying to do,” he told IRNA. “It seems to me to be building up to isolating and attacking Iran which is wholly wrong.”

By Paras Ramoutar, IANS, Port-of-Spain : Hundreds of billboards and welcome signs have sprung up in this capital city as Trinidad and Tobago prepares to welcome Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and 51 other leaders at the opening Nov 27 of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting(CHOGM) at an $80 million conference centre built by a Chinese firm. The government has also announced a special drainage project to ensure that no flooding takes place in the city.

By RIA Novosti Somferopol (Ukraine) : Ukraine Wednesday said it plans to charge Russian ship-owners over $1 billion in damages for a November fuel oil spill in the Kerch Strait. Four vessels and an oil tanker sank Nov 11 during a storm in the Kerch Strait, which joins the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Some 2,000 tonnes of fuel oil spilled into the sea as a result of the accident. Experts said petrochemical concentrations in the strait following the storm were 50 times higher than maximum permissible levels.

By IANS, New York : US stocks opened mixed Friday amid high oil prices and eurozone's crippling debt crisis.

By DPA Kampala (Uganda) : The leader of Uganda's notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has set April 10 as the new date to sign a peace treaty that would bring an end to a two-decade-long civil conflict in the north, government officials said Tuesday. The Ugandan government and the LRA have been involved in the peace negotiations since mid-2006 under the mediation of southern Sudan's leaders and the two sides were to sign a final deal this week to end the 22-year rebellion.

Washington: US President Barack Obama and Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jemaa will meet at the White House April 4, a government official said Tuesday. The...

By M.R. Narayan Swamy, IANS, New Delhi : Tamil Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was with 18 of his most loyal bodyguards when he was trapped and killed by the Sri Lankan military, one of his former rebel associates told IANS Wednesday. Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, whose 2004 revolt played a vital role in the weakening of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also said the Tigers would never rise again.

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS, Toronto : Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Wednesday took to the air in his offensive against the three parties which have joined hands to oust his government. The opposition Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party (NDP) - backed from outside by Bloc Quebecois - have joined in a deal to replace the minority Conservative Party government which was voted back into power just two moths ago.

By DPA,

By IANS, Washington: The US Airways has offered an apology and an undisclosed amount in compensation in a settlement with three Sikh musicians who were removed from a flight at the Sacramento airport in California last year. Sikh organisations in the US had termed the incident involving classical religious performers Davinder Singh, Gulbag Singh and Iqbal Singh as a case of racial profiling and discrimination.

By IANS, Ipoh (Malaysia) : Two Malaysian Indian politicians here are vying to host the Diwali festival, which is the biggest celebration of the year for the Indian community. Ipoh's Little India is emerging as a battleground for Perak state's executive councillor A. Sivanesan, who is from the opposition alliance Pakatan Rakyat, and an equally determined Perak chief of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) G. Rajoo.

By DPA, Washington : The level of carbon emissions into the Earth's atmosphere will surge nearly 40 percent by 2030 if the governments can't force more limits on pollutants blamed for global warming, a US report said Wednesday. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected that energy consumption will increase 44 percent between 2006 and 2030, mainly because of higher demands from the developing world.

By IANS, Beijing : Shanghai has topped a poll of the sexiest cities in China because of its "strong economy, iconic buildings, landscape and cultural diversity".

By IANS, Toronto : Rising carbon dioxide levels will precipitate the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, causing sea levels to rise by four metres.

By IANS, Yangon : Myanmar has allowed for four international bank cards to launch their operations to enable foreign travellers make domestic payments, the official media reported Friday.

By Neena Bhandari, IANS, Sydney : Australia is enticing international tourists to come and lose themselves in the remarkable landscape, unique culture and warmth of its people through a global tourism campaign launched Wednesday that leverages on an outback movie starring Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman. The Australian $50 million (US$32 million) campaign, which will run in cinema, on television, print and online, across 22 countries, including India, puts the spotlight on the outback and indigenous Aboriginal culture.

By DPA, Paris : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday downplayed growing tensions with US President Barack Obama over Israeli settlements, saying it was just a spat between friends. "We have an unbreakable bond of friendship with the US," Netanyahu said in Paris after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Even among best friends there can be differences."

By DPA, Tbilisi/Moscow : Russia and Georgia exchanged prisoners Tuesday as Russian troops slowly began pulling out of the conflict region in Georgia. The Russian military said the withdrawal was being delayed to avoid creating a power vacuum that could lead to further violence in northern Georgia. "We clearly state that we will fulfill our obligations agreed to in the six-point plan, but we shall do so at a tempo dictated by conditions on the ground," Deputy Chief of Staff Anatoly Nagovitsyn told a Moscow press briefing.

By DPA, Manila : Two soldiers were killed in an attack by communist rebels in an eastern Philippine province, a regional army spokesperson said Friday. Lieutenant Colonel Armand Rico said the soldiers were constructing school buildings in Calbiga town in Samar province, 555 km southeast of Manila, when the guerrillas attacked them Thursday. Rico said more troops have been dispatched to the area to secure the engineering team helping construct the school buildings.

By IANS/EFE,

By IANS, Washington : Few would have noticed the Great Presidential Comedy Drought but American political satirists have quietened down after George W. Bush passed the baton to Barack Obama, inviting the charge of hero worship and misplaced political correctness. Stand-up legend Jackie Mason says his peers are "panicky" about "being called a racist" in targeting the first African American president. He adds too many once-fearless satirists are settling for "hero worship" of Obama.

By DPA Brussels : The European Union (EU) member states Saturday launched a controversial policing and justice mission to Kosovo, just one day before the province is expected to declare independence. The mission has the backing of all the EU member states, even those opposed to Kosovo's independence, but it is contested by Serbia and Russia, who say that it would be illegal without the backing of an explicit UN Security Council mandate.

By RIA Novosti, Mexico : Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced plans for the deployment of new Russian-made tanks and combat helicopters on the border with Colombia. Ties between Venezuela and Colombia deteriorated last August after Washington signed a deal with Bogota allowing US forces to run anti-drug operations from Colombian bases. Chavez has criticised the deal and called for the Venezuelan people and army to prepare for a war.

By DPA, Algiers/Paris : Algeria's cabinet Tuesday adopted a decision to lift the country's 19-year-old state of emergency.

By DPA,

By Xinhua, Bangkok : US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sign pacts with the ASEAN countries for the US accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia when she meets the foreign ministers of the grouping July 23. This will be Clinton's first visit to Thailand after she became the top diplomat of the US administration in January this year. The foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Phuket July 19-23 to boost cooperation and discuss regional issues.

United Nations : The UN political chief has said that the developments in Ukraine "should alarm us all," calling for concerted and expeditious efforts...

NAGOYA, Jan 22 (Bernama) -- Three prefectures and a city in the Tokai region with clusters of foreign nationals formulated a common charter Monday to improve the employment conditions of foreigners living in the region and to help them blend in with local communities, Kyodo news agency quoted local officials as saying on Monday. Gifu, Aichi and Mie prefectures and the city of Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, came up with the charter, the first of its kind involving numerous local governments, and local business groups are expected to support it, the officials said.

By IANS, Beijing : Fourteen people died in China Sunday when two passenger buses collided with each other, authorities said.

Yangon : Myanmar President U Thein Sein Tuesday ordered the release of more than 3,000 prisoners serving various terms in the country, a leading...

By DPA, London : It must have been one of Britain's most passionate places but now the rule in Warrington Bank Quay's station is: "No kissing, we're British." No-kissing signs were put up at the station's taxi and drop-off zone designated for rail travellers, as outbreaks of passion appeared to threaten the punctuality of traffic at the station operated by - yes - Virgin Rail.

By IANS, United Nations : In a stinging rebuke of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, an outgoing official charged with combating corruption in the world body has accused him of having failed to maintain accountability, a media report said Tuesday. Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a Swedish auditor who stepped down Friday as undersecretary general of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, has launched an extraordinary personal attack on the UN chief, The Washington Post reported. The 50-page memo marks a challenge to Ban's studiously cultivated image as a champion of accountability.

Beijing : Chinese vessels have covered 646,000 sq km in the Indian Ocean in search of the missing Malaysian flight -- MH370, the China...

By EFE, Sao Paulo : Brazil's Vice President Jose Alencar has said possession of nuclear weapons would enable his country to deter potential aggressors and give the South American nation greater "respectability" on the world stage, a media report said Friday. "Nuclear weapons as an instrument of deterrence are of great importance for a country that has 15,000 km of border," O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper quoted Alencar as saying Thursday while referring to the security of the country's offshore oil deposits.

By Prensa Latina, Harare : The government of Zimbabwe and the opposition have resumed talks following a seven-day halt to consult with the respective leaderships. The deadline spanned until Monday but sources of the opposition Movement for a Democratic Change (MDC) said there is flexibility on the issue. An unclaimed blast without victims at a police station added stress to the talks involving the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) to end the current political crisis.

By DPA Beijing : China Thursday criticised the US for its planned award to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of a Gold Medal at a ceremony that US President George W. Bush is scheduled to attend next week. "China has made solemn representations to the US and clearly stated our position that we oppose the award of the Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. "We are against any country and any people using this issue to interfere with China's internal affairs," Liu told reporters.

By DPA, Beijing : The China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) Tuesday called home a ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe after African ports refused to allow the ship to dock. Speaking to the reporters here, foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu defended the delivery as "a normal military product trade." "The relevant contract was signed last year. It has nothing to do with the current situation in Zimbabwe," she added, saying that "nobody should politicize" the issue.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Libya at the invitation of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya's leader, on April 16 and 17, a Kremlin spokesman said on Monday. Russia's Foreign Ministry earlier said that the settlement of Libya's Soviet-era debt to Russia, which stands at around $3.5 billion, would be a key issue on the agenda of Putin's visit.

By SPA, Kathmandu : At least 13 people were killed and dozens of others were missing after an overcrowded bus plunged off a mountain highway in western Nepal on Monday, police and media reports said. Police said the bus plunged into the fast-flowing Rapti River in Dang district, about 400 kilometers west of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, after skidding off the highway on Monday morning, DPA reported. Police confirmed at least 13 bodies were recovered from the river and said more than 40 others remained missing.

Jerusalem: A 1,500-year-old church from the Byzantine era was unexpectedly discovered during the course of works to widen a highway between Jerusalem and Tel...

By IANS, Sydney: A combination of graphite and water could revolutionise energy storage by recharging batteries in mere seconds while performing as efficiently as lithium ion batteries.

By AFP, Beijing : An operation to drain water from a dangerously swollen "quake lake" that threatened to flood the homes of 1.3 million people in southwest China began on Saturday morning, state media said. Water poured through a hurriedly-dug drainage channel, releasing pressure from the lake which had built up behind a dam caused by the huge earthquake on May 12, Xinhua news agency reported. Soldiers and police dug the channel to stop the lake from bursting its banks and emptying 220 million cubic metres of water downstream.

By N.C. Bipindra, IANS,

By Xinhua

Washington : A security guard at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a major US military hospital, fired gunshots at another guard during an argument, police said.