International

By SPA, Oslo, Norway : Norwegian news agency NTB reports that about 200 workers are being evacuated from an oil platform in the North Sea after a suspected gas leak. NTB says rescue helicopters were being sent Saturday to the Statfjord A platform to assist with the evacuations. About 40 workers will remain on the platform during the operation.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

Washington: The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa is racing ahead of efforts to control it and at least $600 million is needed to...

By Joydeep Gupta, IANS,

By NNN-PTI, Melbourne : Australian government will not sell uranium to India despite welcoming Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) decision to end the 34-year long embargo on nuclear trade with India, official said. "However, Labor is committed to supplying uranium to only those countries party to the NPT. Australia will therefore not be supplying uranium to India while it is not a member of the NPT," Australian trade Minister Simon Crean was quoted as saying in 'The Australian' newspaper report today.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Police in Russia have found five German World War II-era artillery guns along with ammunition in a southern mountainous region.

By DPA, Jakarta : A landslide triggered by hours of heavy downpours buried a family of seven alive in the eastern Indonesian province of Maluku, state media said Thursday. A torrent of mud slammed into a residential area in Nusaniwe district in the provincial capital of Ambon late Wednesday, flattened a house and heavily damaged four others, the state-run Antara news agency reported. The bodies of seven people, including a child, were recovered after rescue workers and locals dug for hours through tons of mud and rocks, the report said.

By IANS/EFE, Bogota: Four soldiers died in a helicopter crash in central Colombia that was apparently caused by bad weather, the army said Monday. The accident...

By IANS Lima : The Peruvian government has apologized for the 1992 La Cantuta killings of nine people by a death squad raised by the then government of president Alberto Fujimori. "In the name of the Peruvian state, we express public apology and (undertake) to make amends to you, who as relatives (of the victims) are seeking that such deeds are never repeated," Justice Minister Maria Zavala said Thursday.

Washington: The World Bank said Monday that it would provide up to $3 billion for Ukraine this year to help the country deliver much-needed...

By IANS,

Athens : Greek Prime Minister Alexia Tsipras on Saturday said the country will hold a referendum on July 5 on the latest debt...

By TCN News Washington, DC: Keith Ellison, member of the US House of Representative has introduced a resolution marking the tenth anniversary of Gujarat violence in 2002.

By IANS, Brisbane : Controversial Australian teenager Bernard Tomic has been handed a holiday gift by officials at the new Brisbane International event. The tournament has assured the Australian Open junior champion of a place in the main draw of the joint ATP-WTA affair starting next weekend. The opportunity comes with the 16-year-old under probe by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) for quitting a minor match in protest this month over foot faults. But Tomic gets the benefit of the doubt from sympathetic Aussie organisers in Queensland.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS Kathmandu : With Nepal's Supreme Court informing that the final verdict on the more than 30-year-old murder case, that can put Charles Sobhraj behind bars here for life, would be delivered Sunday, the notorious criminal has started planning the things he would do if the judges pronounce him not guilty.

By Xinhua Kinshasa : The plane crash in a crowded residential area in Congo's capital of Kinshasa was caused by a mechanical failure, said Dede Ngamba, the sole survivor of the accident. The Antonov-26 cargo plane belonging to private airline Africa One lost balance shortly after takeoff Thursday from Kinshasa's N'Djili International Airport and ploughed into houses before bursting into a fireball, the survivor said.

By DPA, Munich : China has ordered 100 high-speed trains from German engineering giant Siemens and its Chinese partners, the company announced in Munich Friday. Siemens will supply components worth 750 million euros ($1 billion) for the Velaro trains, which will be assembled in China and used on the Beijing-Shanghai route from 2010. The Velaro, a development of Siemen's successful ICE model used in Germany, has a total length of 400 metres, making it world's longest single train used in high-speed transportation.

By DPA, Tokyo : Stocks opened higher Monday in Tokya on Wall Street's Friday rises and a weaker yen. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average went up 62.92 points, or 0.76 per cent, to 8,293.07. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues was up 3.04 points, or 0.37 percent, to 820.93. On currency markets at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), the dollar was quoted at 91.19-24 yen, up from Friday's 5 p.m. quote of 90.29-32 yen. A weaker yen helps boost earnings of Japanese exporters and makes Japanese products cheaper overseas.

By IANS,

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : A Yars RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile has failed a test launch, Russia's Space Forces confirmed Wednesday.

By Xinhua, Manila : A magnitude-5.3 earthquake hit Mindoro Occidental province in Southern Luzon, the Philippines, before dawn Sunday, without causing damage or casualties, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs). The quake was recorded at 04:04 a.m. (2000 GMT Saturday) northwest of Mamburao town in Mindoro Occidental, said Phivolcs. The quake was tectonic in origin and was felt in Lubang Island, central Philippines, and in Puerto Princesa City in Palawan province in southwest Philippines.

By IANS/EFE,

London : Countering common perception that migration at current levels is a new phenomenon, a short animated film commissioned by British historians shows that...

By Bernama, Grozny : An ideological campaign against the spread of ideas of terrorism and extremism will be stepped up in the mosques and educational institutions in Chechnya's capital Grozny, says a resolution issued at a meeting that was held in the office of Grozny's mayor Muslim Khuchiyev. Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, reported that Khuchiyev had met with the heads of the city's civilian district administrations, spiritual leaders and chiefs of Interior departments. The city is rebuilding itself, as new schools, hospitals and mosques are being commissioned, Khuchiyev said.

By IANS, London : British Energy Minister Chris Huhne resigned Friday, Xinhua reported.

By SPA, New York : The Indonesian government has asked Timor Leste President Jose Ramos Horta to provide evidence to support his allegation that Timor Leste rebel commander Alfredo Reinado had received support from "elements in Indonesia", according to Antara. "If Timor Leste can provide evidence, we will be ready to take follow up action on the allegation," Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda said here on Thursday. "We want the allegation to be supported by substance," Wirajuda said in response to ANTARA`s questions.

By Pat Reber, DPA, Washington : When the man charged with the most serious terrorist attack on the US in years disappeared some months ago, his Nigerian family tried to track him down. They contacted Nigerian security agencies and "some foreign security agencies" within the last two months, seeking help in bringing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, back home. "We were hopeful that they would find and return him home," the family said in a statement this week.

By Prensa Latina, Athens : Thousands of Greek young people and workers condemned the recent decision taken by Atlanta’s Court of Appeals against the antiterrorists Cuban Five imprisoned in US, local media reports Wednesday. The demonstrators, gathered at US embassy in Athens, expressed their solidarity to the people of Cuba and their indignation before the decision issued by that hearing on June 4.

By IANS, Toronto : Calling the killing and later beheading of a young Canadian by a fellow bus passenger last week as "god's gift", an American church group says it will protest at the victim's funeral to highlight his "filthy way of life". Twenty-two-year-old Tim McLean of Winnipeg was stabbed to death and then beheaded and cut into pieces by 40-year-old Chinese immigrant Vincent Li who reportedly also ate parts of his body.

By Bernama, Beijing : She held hands of her mum and dad on the way to kindergarten, with no idea that she would soon lose her parents to the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Beichuan County in China's southwest Sichuan Province on May 12. Shielded by the bodies of her parents, three-year-old Song Xinyi survived the catastrophe that claimed more than 50,000 lives and left 5 million homeless.

By DPA, Moscow/Tbilisi(Georgia) : Russia Sunday intensified airstrikes and a naval blockade against Georgia, as international diplomats were exploring ways to establish a ceasefire in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. Three Russian air force Su-25 bombers struck an airfield adjacent to a military aircaft factory outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi shortly after dawn, causing damage but inflicting no casualties, a senior Georgian official said.

By SPA, George Town, Cayman Islands : Gustav swelled to a Category 2 hurricane early Saturday with winds near 100 mph (161 kph) after plowing through the Cayman Islands toward Cuba, gathering strength on a journey that could take it to the U.S. Gulf Coast as a fearsome Category 3 storm three years after Hurricane Katrina, reported ap. Gustav, which killed 71 people in the Caribbean, hit the Caymans Friday with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines. It was expected to cross Cuba's cigar country Saturday and head into the Gulf of Mexico by Sunday.

Beijing, Feb 18 (Xinhua) About 90 percent of Chinese are sick of bureaucratic muddle, an online survey by a leading newspaper has revealed. The China Youth Daily released Monday a report of its online poll on the efficiency of government officials, saying that more than 90 percent of those surveyed were unsatisfied with the bureaucracy. Beijing resident Liu Yan, who bought an apartment recently, had a bad experience of bureaucracy at the city tax department.

By IANS, Toronto : Canada, an important ally of the US in its war against terrorism, Friday appointed Lt-Gen Walter Natynczyk as the new chief of its defence forces. He succeeds Gen Rick Hillier who has been outspoken in his views of the country's military mission in Afghanistan. Lt Gen Natynczyk,who has been the vice chief of defence forces since 2006, is reportedly well liked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

By Shahidur Rashid Talukdar,

By RIA Novosti Belgrade : Protests against Kosovo's independence, the largest in Serbia's history, turned into running street riots in Belgrade overnight leaving over 150 people injured. Around 250,000 people took to the streets in the Serbian capital on Thursday for a demonstration of national unity in the wake of Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday and its subsequent recognition by over a dozen countries.

By DPA London : The Amnesty International Friday condemned the shooting of eight Israeli civilians in Jerusalem, but warned against retaliatory action. "We absolutely condemn this deliberate attack on Israeli civilians as a gross abuse of international humanitarian law," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa. Amnesty demanded that all armed groups immediately stop "targeting of civilians", while calling on Israel to refrain from carrying out attacks that would endanger Palestinian civilians in response to these killings.

By IANS, Abu Dhabi : A mobile hospital funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has started its operations in southern Sudan, WAM new agency reported Sunday. The hospital will serve the people in the region for four months, and provide medical help to tens of thousands of people in South Sudan, said Chairman of the UAE Red Crescent Authority Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The hospital will subsequently travel to several parts of the world to deliver humanitarian services, he added.

By IANS, London : Blood donation may be a thing of the past as scientists have successfully engineered a rice plant to produce a key blood component.

By Xinhua Moscow : Russia's far eastern region of Kamchatka first kicked off the country's fifth parliamentary election on Saturday, in which 11 political parties are competing for 450 seats in the State Duma -- the lower house of parliament. Russians in the Kamchatka region went to the polls from 8 a.m. local time on Sunday (2000 GMT) to cast their ballots while the other parts of the Russian territory still have to wait for several hours to vote.

By Xinhua, Kathmandu : A new constitution for the Federal Republic Nepal will be introduced by May 28, 2010, if everything goes as planned, The Kathmandu Post reported on Monday. According to the daily, the working schedule passed by the Constituent Assembly (CA) on Sunday, which includes various procedures to be followed for the next 18 months while roughing out the awaited constitution from Sunday onwards, mentions that the new constitution will be promulgated within the last week of May 2010.

By IRNA, London : Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, announced Tuesday that he is inviting a group of Christian and Muslim leaders and scholars to a conference in October that will mark the first anniversary of the publication of A Common Word. The conference is being held in collaboration with Cambridge University and the archbishop said the scholarly engagement will seek to consider a "program of practical steps to deepen mutual understanding, action and friendships."

By TCN News, The 15th Aman Chaupal of Aaghaz-e-Dosti was conducted via video conferencing for interaction between youth activists from India and Pakistani students...

By IANS, London: The Olympic flame arrived in Britain Friday after being flown from Athens, Greece, for the London 2012 torch relay.

By IANS, London : A technology that improves voice clarity on mobile phones by filtering out unwanted sounds is on offer. High Definition (HD) Voice claims to reduce the background noise and 'hisses' that often mar mobile phone calls and offer users 'crystal clear' sound. HD Voice, which went live Wednesday, should help those people who frequently make calls from trains and noisy workplaces, reports the Daily Mail. The firm also claims that HD voice is able to 'eliminate the perceived distance between callers making it easier to hear the emotions in people's voices.'

By IANS,

By IANS, Washington : President George W. Bush Wednesday signed a nearly $50-billion US aid package to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in the developing world, more than tripling an initiative that was first championed by him at the start of his eight-year term in office. The new funds, spread over five years, are intended to curb AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis epidemics that have struck the African continent and a number of other poor regions.

By Prensa Latina, United Nations : South African President Thabo Mbeki delivered the opening address of the special Security Council Session on conflict settlement, post conflict reconstruction and development promotion. The head of states noted that fund shortage has limited the African Union efforts to meet the goals and prevents Africa from honoring its commitments and settle its own conflicts. In his view, the funds to keep peace-keeping operations is basic to define and make relations between the UN and AU more efficient.

By IANS, Beijing: Twenty people were injured early Saturday in China's Shaanxi province when a fire raged through a high-rise building, authorities said.

By IANS, New Delhi : Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa seems set for an easy victory over his rival and former army chief Sarath Fonseka in the Jan 26 presidential poll, according to an opinion survey. Viplav Communications Pvt. Ltd., which has earlier been strategic advisors to numerous Indian politicians and conducted election surveys in India, conducted the survey in Sri Lanka. The findings of the survey were made available to IANS here.

By IANS, Beijing: A total of 488,271 cases of infectious diseases were reported in the Chinese in January that led to the death of 1,167 people, the health ministry said Thursday.

By DPA Sydney : Australia, Japan and the European Union could follow the US in applying new sanctions on Iran if it continues with its nuclear enrichment programme, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Saturday. Downer was commenting on the announcement this week by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of more sanctions on Tehran, as well as on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which the US accuses of supporting terrorism.

By Xinhua, Tokyo : The toll in Japan's 7.2 magnitude earthquake Saturday in the north-eastern part of the country rose to six, officials said. The powerful quake jolted the region at around 8.00 a.m. Two hundred people were injured and 11 people were missing after the quake. The epicentre was located in the southern part of the Iwate Prefecture. The earthquake was felt in many parts of the region, including Honshu Island, Tokyo and Hokkaido, Miyagi and Akita Prefectures. No tsunami warning was issued.

By Pat Reber, DPA, Washington : Stunned silence swept across the US Congress, observers said. One colleague wept. Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, left-wing icon and champion of the rights of workers and the poor, had been diagnosed with brain cancer. The announcement Tuesday sent shockwaves throughout Washington's political establishment, with Republican and Democratic leaders alike paying tribute to his achievements and significance in US political life.

By IANS, London : British Prime Minister David Cameron who is on a holiday in Italy returned to an Italian cafe to make amends for failing to tip a waitress, BBC reported.

By DPA, Manila : Twenty-eight passengers and crew members of a ferry that sank in stormy seas in the central Philippines were found alive as rescuers Monday continued to search for more than 800 missing people, a police official said. Senior Superintendent Fidel Posadas said the 28 survivors reached the shores of Mulanay town in Quezon province, 150 km south-east of Manila, aboard an inflatable life raft from the capsized MV Princess of the Stars. Posadas said local authorities were coordinating with Sulpicio Lines, owner of the ill-fated ferry, to turn over the survivors.

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS,

By IANS Male/New Delhi : Maldives has become the first South Asian nation to issue for its citizens e-passports, compliant with International Civil Aviation Organization specifications. The new passport follows a completely new design, and features the passport holder's facial and fingerprint information as biometric identifiers, according to a statement from the Maldives immigration department. It is designed to enable easier passage for Maldivian nationals when they travel abroad.

By DPA, Jakarta: US President Barack Obama Tuesday made a much-anticipated return to Indonesia, a country where he spent part of his childhood.

By DPA Colombo : Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom escaped being stabbed by a young man Tuesday during a visit to one of his country's islands, his government's official website said. The president was in a large crowd that had gathered to welcome him to Hoarafushi, a northern island, when an unidentified youth tried to stab him, the site said. Gayoom was not harmed, but a boy scout was injured, it said. The president has been facing protests from the Maldivian Democratic Party, which is campaigning for democratic reforms.

By RIA Novosti Lvov (Ukraine) : World's oldest living person Grigoriy Nestor, who had witnessed both the World Wars, has died at the age of 116 in western Ukraine. Nestor, who died Sunday, was born March 15, 1891 in a village in Lvov region. The man had reportedly never felt ill or taken any medicine throughout his live. He had also never drunk heavily. Nestor, who worked as a shepherd, used to say that he was able to live so long because he had never been married and had not had his nervous system "undermined on the marital front".

By Shweta Srinivasan, IANS, Vettangudi (Madurai) : Perched on the sprawling branches of a partially submerged tree, thousands of White Ibis migratory birds at the Vettangudi Bird Sanctuary here have the villagers to thank for making their winter home a noise-free zone. The local folk have imposed a ban on the bursting of firecrackers in the region to make it conducive for the migratory birds after noticing a decline in their numbers.

By DPA Rome : Polls opened across Italy Sunday morning for the first day of parliamentary elections. Voting in which some 50 million Italians are eligible to cast ballots was scheduled to continue until 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) and again Monday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (1300 GMT). Preliminary results were expected by Monday evening. Centre-right opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi and former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni of the centre-left Democratic Party are the main contenders in the race, which comes just two years after Italy's last parliamentary poll.

By IANS, Toronto : A new Canadian study says that cosmic rays, not chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), are the main cause of the depletion of the ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere. The study also predicts that the largest ozone hole - larger than the size of the US and Canada combined - will occur over Antarctica in ``one or two weeks.'' The ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere absorbs the sun's high-frequency ultraviolet rays which are deadly for life on earth and cause diseases such as skin cancer and cataracts.

By DPA Yangon : Over 15,000 Buddhist monks and laymen marched through the streets of Yangon Sunday in an escalating protest against Myanmar's military regime, which has thus far refrained from cracking down on the saffron-robed rebellion. More than 3,000 monks, joined for the first time by 300 nuns, from various townships marched to the Shwedagon Pagoda, and then continued to Sule Pagoda and wove their way north, drawing more followers as they proceeded.

By IANS, Beijing : Candidates taking the public service exam in a Chinese province were stumped by one question: "Are you satisfied with your sex life?"

By IANS, La Paz : Seventeen people, including children, have been killed and three others injured in a bus accident near the Bolivian capital, EFE reported Monday. The accident occurred Saturday night on the Naciones Unidas Avenue when the bus veered off the road and fell into a deep ravine, the Bolivian highway patrol said Sunday. At the time of the accident there were heavy showers in the region, officials said. Most of the victims have been identified, the report said.

By Paras Ramoutar, IANS Port of Spain : Former Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Basdeo Panday will face retrial on charges of failing to declare financial assets as a public servant. Panday had been convicted in April 2006 on three charges of failing to declare an estimated $320,000 in a London bank account to the country's Integrity Commission. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment, fined $10,000 and ordered to pay the state $320,000.

By Prensa Latina Moscow : Energy and technical-military collaboration mark the official 48-hour visit of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to Russia, sources from the Kremlin said Monday. Advisors from the Algerian government confirmed that Bouteflika is in the Russian capital at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, with whom he will talk Tuesday. Both presidents met in March 2006 during Putin's trip to North Africa, which concluded with signing several strategic cooperation agreements for more than seven billion dollars.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington: A US Congressional panel Thursday began a probe into how a celebrity couple gatecrashed into President Barack Obama's state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, noting there were "undeniable planning and execution failures" by the Secret Service apparatus. However, the security service chief said the "mistake" did not pose a risk to the dignitaries.