International

By RIA Novosti, Brussels : The European Union is seeking closer ties with Russia under President Dmitry Medvedev, the EU foreign policy supremo said in an interview published on Wednesday. Relations between Europe and Russia soured under Medvedev's predecessor Vladimir Putin over a range of issues, including energy and democratic freedoms. Medvedev pledged in his inauguration speech in May to promote the rule of law, free speech and human rights.

By Xinhua, Islamabad : Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi returned home from India on Saturday, official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported. Qureshi came back to Pakistan on Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani's special aircraft to attend the meeting of cabinet to discuss the Mumbai situation and allegations leveled by India, said the report. Qureshi was in India to discuss the Pakistan-India peace process with his counterpart, when terrorists struck parts of Mumbai, killing over 190 and injuring hundreds.

Jerusalem: Israeli security forces have been put on high alert after a Palestinian teenager, who was critically wounded during a protest in east Jerusalem...

By IANS Kuala Lumpur : Jet Airways has introduced a bigger Airbus A330-200 aircraft for its Kuala Lumpur-Chennai route with a capacity to carry more passengers on its daily flights. The Airbus started its service Saturday. The wide-bodied Airbus A330-200 can accommodate 190 passengers for its economy class and 30 for its premier class, compared with a maximum of 140 passengers on its Boeing B737-800 previously.

By Manish Chand, IANS,

By SPA Washington : A former senior United Nations officer has been sentenced to eight years in jail for accepting a variety of bribes in exchange for information about UN contracts. Sanjaya Bahel was convicted last June of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cash, first-class plane tickets and real estate deals from Nishan Kohli, a businessman working with the UN. In exchange, Bahel gave Kohli inside information that helped Kohli’s company, Thunderbird Industries, and other firms he represented, in bids for UN contracts.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has praised the rapid development of the internet in the country, and called on web users to engage more in policy-making.

Melbourne: An Afghan man has won a battle for Australian citizenship, despite admitting to beating his sisters with a tree branch, media reported on...

By DPA, Lima : Peru's President Alan Garcia accepted the resignations of his entire cabinet in the face of a brewing corruption scandal over petroleum concessions. "This cabinet will leave with their heads high, and Peru will reflect on the good work that they have contributed," Garcia said Friday after accepting the resignations. "The road ahead of us is wide open."

By Prensa Latina, Moscow : Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov reiterated Friday that his country will provide internal security to the rebel republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, by virtue of bilateral agreements. By a telephone conversation with the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Lavrov emphasized that international observers will be deployed only around the territories already mentioned.

By IANS,

By Xinhua, Urumqi (China) : The death toll in the riots in China's Urumqi city has risen to 184, authorities said Saturday. The dead comprise 137 people from the Han community, including 26 women. Forty-six were Uighurs, including one woman. A man of Hui community also died, the information office of the regional government said. The riots started in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Sunday when a group of protesters demanded an investigation into the death of two ethnic Uighurs who died during a fight with Han Chinese workers at a toy factory in late June.

By IANS, Beijing : With low prices, discounts and the ease of buying, online shopping has attracted more than 100 million netizens in China in recent times, and with it a lot of "phishing". "Phishing" is a fraudulent process in which a fake website attempts to acquire a user's passwords or credit card information by disguising itself as a trustworthy entity. People can find most of the things they want without stepping out of their doors. But as the business flourishes, it has created opportunities for an increasing number of swindlers, the Global Times reported.

By IANS, Beijing : A majority of people - more than 50 percent - win lawsuits filed against government officials in a province in China, officials statistics say.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian President Dmitry Medvedev got more than 15,000 followers in less than 12 hours after officially opening up his Twitter account during his visit to the US. Twitter Inc. has confirmed that Medvedev has a verified account with the social networking and microblogging service. Medvedev's account is both in English and Russian, and he has so far added only two microblogs: US President Barack Obama and the US White House. Obama and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the opening of Medvedev's account on their Twitter blogs.

By IANS, London: French actor Gerard Depardieu is pleased to have been granted Russian citizenship.

By RIA Novosti, Brussels : The European Union (EU) is hoping that Russia will not abolish the moratorium on the death penalty, an official of the 27-member block has said. Russia undertook to scrap the death penalty when it signed Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, but it has not yet ratified the document.

By Arun Kumar By IANS,

By DPA,

By IRNA, Berlin : The ongoing Georgian crisis may trigger a new Cold War between the US and Russia, German Foreign Minister Frank- Walter Steinmeier warned in a interview with Saturday's edition of the Duesseldorf-based Rheinischen Post newspaper. The objective must be to turn the "very fragile ceasefire into a lasting truce," said Steinmeier. However, there was a still a long way ahead to reach such a durable ceasefire, he added. The German government warned earlier this week against US-led efforts to isolate Russia over its military action in Georgia.

London : Ed Miliband on Friday resigned as the Labour Party leader after the loss of his party to Prime Minister David Cameron's Tories...

By IANS,

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Beijing : Trade between Russia and China rose by 55.8 percent to $4.75 billion in May, compared to the corresponding period last year, Chinese customs authorities said Thursday. Russia's exports to China increased by 57.4 percent to $2.551 billion, while China's exports increased by 53.8 percent to $2.2 billion in May this year. Since the beginning of the year, China's imports from Russia totalled $11.693 billion and exports $9.316 billion. Russia's share in China's overall foreign trade in January-May this year totalled $1.1 trillion.

By Prensa Latina, Hanoi : Floods resulting from heavy rain in North Vietnam since Friday caused by typhoon Hammuri have left some 145 dead or missing plus thousands of victims. The Storm Control Office says the casualties round 200, including 100 dead, mostly in Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Phu Tho provinces, and 4,000 houses destroyed with thousands trapped at some areas. Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh called the government to aid the victims with food and medication and arrange a reconstruction plan.

By IANS, London: A man died and another was seriously injured when a large metal door fell on them at a music venue in Britain, BBC reported Sunday.

By Prensa Latina Washington : President George W. Bush Administration doubled spendings in sophisticated weaponry from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion in 2007 and most of the technology is not available yet. An editorial on The New York Times says that since the Republican president assumed office, expenses for Defense development projects multiplied but they are delayed and drain millions of dollars from the national budget. The Bush Administration has squandered a large percentage in failed military programs, plus some $600 billion in the disastrous war in Iraq, noted the daily.

By DPA, Bangkok : Thai Parliament Wednesday provided a majority vote for Somcahi Wongsawat, the brother-in-law of coup-ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, to become the next prime minister. More than 240 members of parliament had already cast their votes for Somchai less than an hour after the special session opened, assuring him the premiership. Somchai Tuesday secured the nomination of his People Power Party (PPP) and its five coalition partners, who together hold 306 of the 480 seats in the Lower House.

By IANS, Washington:A local Islamic leader in Detroit has said he was disturbed by the attack in a plane about to land there. He called for Muslims to work with law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism. "We want to do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen," said Victor Begg, of Bloomfield Hills, head of the Council of Islamic Organisations of Michigan. "We want to be on the front lines to help law enforcement."

By Xinhua Seoul : Lee Myung-bak of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) was advanced in the presidential election, an exit poll joint conducted by the KBS and MBC broadcast showed on Wednesday. According to the exit poll, 50.3 percent of a total of 50,000 respondents across the country gave their ballots to Lee Myung-bak on Wednesday's election. The GNP party hailed the result of the exit poll. The GNP said Lee will celebrate his victory as well as his 66th birthday after getting the official result.

By SPA Beijing : A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit a remote and sparsely inhabited part of the Tibetan plateau in western China on Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency reported. The tremor struck at 4:26 p.m. Beijing time some 100 km (60 miles) east of Gerze county in Ngari prefecture, Xinhua said, quoting the China Seismological Monitoring Network. "The area has an altitude of more than 4,000 metres and has very few residents," it said. "There have been no reports of casualties."

By SPA Washington : US President George W. Bush will announce his efforts to cut money delegated for earmarked projects by U.S. lawmakers during the State of the Union address, the White House said. According to Deputy White House press secretary Tony Fratto, Bush will promise to take “unprecedented steps” to “veto any spending bill that does not succeed in cutting earmarks in half from 2008 levels.”

By DPA, Harare : Twenty-two people, mainly children under five years, have died of measles in Zimbabwe in the past three weeks, state media reported Tuesday. The Herald daily, which is close to President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, said the 22 had missed out on being vaccinated when the health department undertook a nationwide mass immunization programme earlier in the year. All 22 dead were from the Makoni area, about 200 km east of Harare, where a further 90 people have also been confirmed infected by the highly contagious respiratory virus.

By Xinhua, Toyako, Japan : UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moom said here Monday that the Group of Eight (G8) nations should take concrete action to implement their commitments made in2005 to double their aid to Africa by 2010. Ban made the remarks at a press conference here on the sidelines of the G8 summit, which opened Monday in the northern Japanese resort of Toyako.

By Prensa Latina Beijing : China declared on Monday it is deeply concerned over the unilateral declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao affirmed that step will negatively influenced on peace and stability in the Balkans, as well as on the aspiration to establish a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo. China urges Serbia and Kosovo to keep looking for an adequate solution through negotiations in line with international law, and to jointly preserve security and stability in the Balkans, he sustained.

By Prensa Latina Brussels : European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini announced the European Union intention of preventing foreigners to remain in country members' territories after their visa date expires. Frattini told media on Friday that the means to do this will be through an electronic registry of entrance and exit that will allow location of people in that situation and avoid the presence of illegal immigrants.

By IANS/AKI, Rome : A 20-million euro ($25 million) hotel complex and land owned in Italy by the family of slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have been seized.

Pyongyang, Sep 18 (Xinhua) A delegation of 35 South Korean officials arrived here Tuesday to arrange details of next month's summit between the two countries' leaders. South Korean Vice Unification Minister Lee Kwan-se is leading the delegates, who are expected to inspect the venue for the inter-Korean summit and arrange details of the itinerary and accommodations for the summit, the South Korean news agency Yonhap said.

By Anil Giri Kathmandu: Nepal is keenly following the upcoming general elections in India as any crucial economic or political changes that take place...

By DPA,

By DPA London/Brussels : The EU Commission Monday imposed an official ban on exports of meat, milk and animals from Britain as investigation continued into the source of the foot and mouth disease outbreak at a farm in southern England. Merial Animal Health, a private US pharmaceutical company located at the Pirbright site 5 km away from the affected farm, where an identical strain of the disease was found, denied Monday that there had been any breach in biosecurity procedures.

By IANS, Ottawa : US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed Canada Monday for not inviting Sweden, Finland, and Iceland for the Arctic summit held near Ottawa and made an early exit from the gathering. Attended by foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Russia, the US and Norway, the summit was organized to discuss the future of the resource-rich Arctic region which contains one fourth of the world's oil and gas reserves as well as unfathomed mineral wealth.

By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS London : White is not right for many young British Asians who prefer to marry within their own ethnic origin, according to a new survey by the BBC Asian Network as part of events related to 60 years of India and Pakistan's independence. Young British Asians who were born and brought up in Britain may have many things in common with their white colleagues and peers. But when it comes to marriage, most prefer spouses who have the same country of origin in the Indian sub-continent.

By RIA Novosti

Tokyo : North Korea successfully launched advanced short-range missiles last week, South Korea's Yonhap news agency Monday said.