International

By IANS, Washington: US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday said her government was committed to Israel's security and the alliance between the two countries will "never waver". "For President Obama, for me, and for this entire administration, our commitment to Israel's security and Israel's future is rock solid," Clinton told the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israel lobby in the US.

By Xinhua, BEIRUT : A well-informed source Saturday advised the Lebanese government to "wait" before accepting the Russian-donated MIG-29 jet fighters that are possibly "unsafe", Lebanese daily Al-Nahar report. A report in Russian Kommersant business daily quoted military sources as saying that "one third of the MIG-29 should be written off as obsolete because they are too rusty to take off without crashing." A pilot was killed during a MIG-29 fighter crash in southern Siberia on Dec. 5 and another MIG-29 crashed in October last year, the report added.

By NNN-Bernama, Phnom Penh : The major ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won around 58.11 percent of the votes in the fourth general election, according to the preliminary official balloting results declared by the National Election Committee (NEC) here Saturday. In the general election which was held on July 4, 3.4 million voters casts their votes for CPP. The total voters voted in the general election records a sum of 6.01 million.

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS, Vancouver : As a ship carrying nearly 500 Sri Lankan Tamils landed here Thursday, the Canadian public safety minister hinted that the Tamil Tigers were behind smuggling these people into Canada. After a three-month voyage, the Thai ship 'MV Sun Sea' with 490 Tamils on board was escorted by naval vessels into Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt on Vancouver Island Thursday morning. The asylum seekers would be given medical treatment, photographed and fingerprinted before being sent to detention facilities, officials of the Canadian Border Security Agency said.

By KUNA United Nations : Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic late Monday lashed out at the countries which recognized Kosovo's independence, mainly the US, warning that their diplomatic relations will obviously suffer in the future. He told reporters following a Security Council open meeting on the issue that the Serb envoys in the countries which recognized this "illegal act" of secession have been withdrawn to Belgrade for consultation.

By IANS,

By IANS, Washington: Long before a pair of gatecrashers penetrated the White House state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Secret Service had counted 91 instances of security breaches since 1980 at the executive mansion, the Washington Post reported Monday. The Secret service had detailed for its internal use a lengthy list of security breaches dating to the Carter administration - including significant failures in the agency's protection of the president in a secret 2003 report, the influential daily said.

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By DPA, New York : The UN Thursday nearly tripled its original appeal for humanitarian assistance in Haiti, calling for a total of $1.5 billion to help 3 million Haitians affected by the devastating January earthquake. The $1.5 billion would include the earlier flash appeal of $577 million issued immediately after the magnitude-7 earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince Jan 12, killing more than 230,000 people and destroying large parts of the city.

By Xinhua, Chengdu : The current earthquake relief and rebuilding work have further displayed the nature and capabilities of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping Sunday in a tour to quake-hit areas of Sichuan Province. The mainstay role played by Party organizations at different levels, Party members and officials in the anti-quake campaign shows that the recent years' efforts to Party building have been "very fruitful," said Xi, also member of the Standing Committee ofthe CPC Central Committee Political Bureau.

Seoul: Fire broke out near a bus terminal in Goyang, a city just north of South Korea's capital Seoul, leaving fived dead and three...

By Xinhua, Washington : Former first lady and New York Senator Hillary Clinton was projected by major US TV networks to have won Democratic presidential primary Sunday in Puerto Rico. Based on exit polls, Clinton is likely to beat her rival Barrack Obama at a ratio of two to one in a clean sweep across all demographic groups in the island. However, the victory is largely symbolic as Obama is well ahead of her in the tally of delegates going to the August national convention. Going to the Puerto Rico primary, Obama has some 2,050 delegates and Hillary Rodham Clinton has 1,877.

Oslo : Norway's mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has sued the government for violating his human rights by exposing him to extreme isolation in...

By P.K. Balachandran, IANS Colombo : US ambassador Robert O. Blake Wednesday expressed doubts if the upcoming local elections in Sri Lanka's eastern Tamil-speaking district of Batticaloa would be free and fair. "The US does not believe that free and fair elections can be held if some (political) parties are armed," Blake said in Batticaloa at a function organised by USAID. He further said that if "paramilitary" groups carrying arms illegally were allowed to intimidate others, it would hamper private investment that is so much needed to develop war-affected Batticaloa.

By IRNA, Vienna : When millions of HIV-infected people in poor countries began receiving advanced drug therapies, critics worried that patient care would suffer because few high tech laboratories were available to guide treatments.

By RIA Novosti New York : UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called for calm in the aftermath of Sunday's declaration of independence by Kosovo as Western powers prepared to recognize the sovereignty of the world's 'newest state'. Kosovo declared independence on Sunday after an emergency session of parliament, with Prime Minister Hashim Thaci saying the new state would be "proud, independent and free." The U.S and a large number of European countries are expected to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty later on Monday.

Beijing : The lessons learnt from China-India land border dispute management can help settle the maritime dispute between China and Japan and the disputes...

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By DPA Bangkok : Thailand's first-ever referendum has endorsed the country's 18th constitution that promises to weaken the political party system and strengthen the hand of the bureaucracy and military, initial results showed Monday. A count of 93 percent of the ballots cast in Sunday's plebiscite, found that 58.3 percent voted yes, 41.7 percent no and the remainder were invalid, said Election Commission secretary general Sittipol Paveechaikorn. About 25 million out of 45.6 million eligible voters, or about 55 percent, participated in the referendum.

By IANS/EFE, San Salvador : Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes made a formal apology to the victims of the 1980-1992 civil war and acknowledged that state security forces "committed serious human rights violations and abuses of power". "I apologise in the name of the Salvadoran state," the leftist leader Saturday said in his address at an act of celebration for the peace pact signed 18 years ago.

By NNN-Nepal News Kathmandu : Nepal has surged more than 20 places to be placed at 137th position in the ranking of the world press freedom index owing to revival of basic freedoms after the end of war, according to a report published by Paris based Reporters Sans Frontiers Tuesday. “The end of war and return to democratic rule resulted in a revival of basic freedoms and created new space for the media, stated the RSF in its annual report, adding, “But ethnic violence in the south of the country has exposed journalists to new dangers,” the RSF added.

By DPA, New York : A UN surveillance plane crashed in Haiti Friday, killing all 11 people on board, the UN said. The dead included the crew members and peacekeepers from Uruguay and Jordan, the UN said. There was no breakdown on the death toll from each of the countries. There was no information about the cause of the crash. The military plane belonging to the Uruguayan contingent of the UN mission in Haiti was monitoring the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the UN said.

By RIA Novosti, Pittsburgh : Russia and the United States have agreed to jointly participate in the preparation of the nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010, the Russian president said on Saturday. "There is an agreement that we will be participating in the preparation of the summit on the nuclear security, which will be held in Washington [D.C.] in 2010," President Dmitry Medvedev said at a news conference following the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.

By IANS, Beijing : A Chinese woman is suspected of beating her three-year-old daughter to death for not being able to recite a poem, a media report said Wednesday. The woman told the police in Jiashan, Zhejiang province, March 30 that her daughter died from a fall the night before. However, a medical examination revealed injuries on the girl's face and hands, China Daily reported. She later confessed to investigators that she had beaten up her daughter for failing to recite the poem "Thoughts on a Still Night" by ancient Chinese poet Li Bai.

By IANS/EFE, Lima : A mummy, apparently of a young woman, was abandoned on a Lima street along with ancient ceramic artifacts, a forensic expert told Peruvian media.

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By IANS, By AKI, Rome: Authorities in the Italian capital are converting an apartment that belonged to a mafia boss into a shelter for vulnerable children, officials said.

By Venkata Vemuri, IANS, London : Mary Gilfoyle's teeth were troubling her and her NHS dentist wouldn't see her for another two days. She braved the pain and went shopping, where she had a surprise in store. A freshly enclosed section of the Sainsbury's supermarket in Greater Manchester drew her attention. She went inside and entered Britain's first ever supermarket dentistry. By the time she checked out, the 51-year-old's toothache was gone and she had to pay much less than at her NHS surgery.

By IANS, Moscow : Russia Tuesday dismissed the US sanctions against Iran as "illegitimate", Xinhua reported. The unilateral sanctions have no legal ground and will destroy...

By IANS, Washington: That playing video games makes the brain smarter and improves concentration might be a myth fostered by a host of studies.

By IANS, Melbourne : Australian model Elle Macpherson has been criticised by animal rights groups for advocating the use of powdered rhino horn, a traditional Chinese medicine remedy which is banned worldwide by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Asked in an interview why Macpherson takes powdered rhino horn, she replied, "Put it this way, (it) works for me". She went on to say that the rhino horn tasted "a little bit like crushed bone and fungus in a capsule…" but it "does the job though".

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : The US has placed India, China and 10 others on its Priority Watch List of trading partners that do not provide an adequate level of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection or enforcement. Besides India and China, Russia, Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela have been placed on the Priority Watch List and "will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year".

By Xinhua Beijing : Environment is one aspect of life the average Chinese is most unsatisfied with for the third year running, according to a "comfort survey" conducted by a state-run magazine. Respondents gave 56.6 out of 100 points to the environment, grading it the lowest of the 11-point "xiaokang or moderate prosperity index". Happiness with 79.6 points has been graded highest on a scale, which marks 60 as the minimum satisfaction level.

By Prensa Latina, Pyongyang : The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) warned on Wednesday of the complicity between the United States and the Republic of Korea against it. Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of the DPRK, cited a US project approved by Congress in September to strengthen defense cooperation with Seoul in the field. According to the paper, the Washington's proposal hides the sinister intention to complete preparations for the second Korean war and strengthen the military alliance with South Korea.

By DPA, Washington : The US jobless rate fell to 9.7 percent as the economy added 431,000 jobs in May, but the vast majority were temporary government hires and the private sector remains extremely weak, according to Labour Department figures released Friday. The private sector added just 41,000 jobs in May, the department said in a report that disappointed markets. The government accounted for 390,000 net jobs, with staffing for the census, a population count that takes place every 10 years, adding 411,000 people.

By IANS, London: GE Capital Monday signed an agreement with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the UK-based subsidiary of India's Tata Motors, to provide a working capital facility of up to 170 million pounds (over Rs.1,300 crore) for a five-year term. In a statement, GE said the facility represented "an innovative structure" to finance JLR finished vehicle stocks between the points of production and onward sale to dealers on a revolving basis.

By Xinhua New York : New York City marked the 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii with a flyover of the Statue of Liberty and dropping of 66 roses on Friday. The Skytypers of New York, the Antique Airplane Club and the Bayport Aerodrome Society took off in vintage aircraft from Republic Airport in Farmingdale at noon and flew to New York Harbor, where they dropped 66 roses over the Statue of Liberty at 12:55 p.m. (1755 GMT) -- the time the attack started, eastern standard time.

By IANS, Washington : A minority of people with an extraordinary ability to multitask can drive safely while chatting on their mobile phone, unlike the other 97.5 percent, says a new study. These individuals - described by the researchers as "supertaskers" - constitute only 2.5 percent of the population. They are so named because they can handle two things simultaneously, chat on their mobile phone while operating a driving simulator without noticeable impairment.

By Prensa Latina, Washington : Dozens of communities in the US Middle West are still in danger of flooding, because of the overflows of the Mississippi River and affluents due to the rains of the last two weeks. The overflows of the Mississippi River left 24 dead and forced the authorities to evacuate 35,000 people, as much as the waters started to rise and threatened to cover several towns in the states of Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Thousands of families were forced to leave their homes and found their dwellings destroyed when they came back, together with their belongings.

By IANS,

By EFE, Santiago : At least 10 people have died in a massive fire at a prison in Chile, officials said. The incident took place in the Colina II prison Sunday, some 35 km north of Santiago. The police said the fire broke out after a stove was knocked over during a brawl between two groups of inmates. Several inmates were also injured in the incident. The prison houses about 3,000 inmates. Firefighters rushed to the prison after the incident.

By DPA, Pretoria/Brussels : Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Tuesday blasted as "malicious" assurances given by southern African leaders at the end of a 12-hour summit that the party had agreed to join President Robert Mugabe in a power-sharing government. "It's completely malicious," a spokesman for MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai told DPA after South African President Kgalema Motlanthe told reporters that Zimbabwe's four-month-long political impasse had been resolved.

Bogota, (DPA) The death toll in the collapse of a pit where miners were digging for gold was up to 24, Colombian authorities said. Another 28 miners were reported injured in the rockslide Saturday at the illegal gold mine near Suarez in southwestern Colombia. Rescue crews digging with heavy equipment through tons of debris had recovered 21 bodies by Sunday evening, with three more miners missing and presumed dead.

By IINA, Jakarta : A majority of Indonesians would like to see Sharia law implemented in their country, a new poll shows. The poll of 8,000 people in the world's most populous Muslim country, home to 200 million Muslims, found that 52 per cent favored some form of Islamic legal code, such as religious arbitration in family disputes. Asked if women should be made to wear a head scarf 45 per cent said yes, while 40 per cent favored chopping off the hands of thieves.

By Xinhua, Warsaw : US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski Wednesday signed an agreement to deploy a global missile shield in this East European country. The Polish and US negotiators reached the deal last Thursday. Both sides negotiated the deal for the past 18 months. According to the plan, the US would place 10 interceptor missiles in northern Poland by 2011-2013 to protect the US and Europe from possible future attacks from what it calls "rogue" states such as Iran.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : For the first time since South Korea's conservative government came to power, an official delegation will visit North Korea to discuss the sale of unspent nuclear fuel rods, Yonhap reported on Tuesday. The visit is part of talks involving six countries - the two Koreas, the U.S., Russia, China and Japan - under a deal providing fuel and economic incentives to North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang giving details of its nuclear program and disabling its atomic facilities. The process recently came to a halt amid diplomatic wrangling.

By Xinhua, Beijing : There are about 13 million abortions performed every year in China and inadequate knowledge about contraception among women is blamed for this high rate of pregnancy terminations, the China Daily reported Thursday. Nearly half of the women who had abortions had not used any form of contraception, Wu Shangchun, divisional director of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission's technology research centre, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

By IANS, Beijing: A cancer-causing industrial dye has been found in chili paste and red chili powder products in China, a trade watchdog has said.

By IANS,

By Indo-Asian News Service Dhaka: India has welcomed the growing opportunities of economic cooperation among South Asian nations and hopes these would help depart from "sterile patterns" of relationships hampered by "political factors." For this to accelerate and succeed, it was necessary that political parties resolve their problems mutually by dialogue and discussion rather than allow "external intervention or pressure", India's Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said here Wednesday.

By IANS, Washington : The Organization of American States (OAS) has expressed support for Bolivia's territorial integrity and called for a dialogue in the deeply divided nation ahead of an autonomy referendum this weekend in the eastern province of Santa Cruz. The OAS, which adopted a resolution late Friday after seven hours of intense talks, however, did not denounce the holding of the referendum as Bolivian President Evo Morales had demanded, EFE news agency reported Sunday.

By DPA, Washington : At least 11 people were killed in the US state of Tennessee over the weekend after torrential rains led to heavy flooding, broadcaster CNN reported Monday. Thousands of people had to flee their homes, while hotels and nursing homes were evacuated. Rapidly moving water washed over roads and parking lots, leading to the shutdown of several highway stretches. Some drivers had to be rescued by firefighters after rising water trapped them in their cars.

By Xinhua, Seoul : Thousands of protesters, who opposed U.S. beef imports into South Korea, clashed violently with riot police in downtown Seoul until early Sunday morning, leaving over 100 people injured. In the first weekend rally after Seoul implemented its agreement with Washington to resume U.S. beef imports, about 15,000 protesters gathered around Seoul City Hall Saturday night and marched towards the presidential office, Yonhap news agency reported.

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By IANS, Washington: Climate models project that the global average temperature will rise about 1 degree C by mid-century, if we continue with business as usual and emit greenhouse gases. The global average, though, does not tell us anything about what will happen to regional climates.

By IANS,

Kiev ; Hundreds of pro-Russian protesters stormed and occupied a regional television station building in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk Sunday afternoon, the media...

By Zhou Yan, Xinhua, Beijing : President Hu Jintao flew to quake-ravaged Sichuan Province early on Friday, more than 80 hours after the most destructive earthquake in new China killed nearly 20,000 people there. This shows China's top leadership has not given up hope, although the "golden 72 hours" for survival defined by many experts is over. "If only there is the slightest hope, we will spare no effort; if only there is one survivor in the debris, we will never give up," Premier Wen Jiabao said over the debris of a collapsed school building where hundreds were buried.

By IANS, London : Corus, owned by the Tata Steel Group, has announced plans to cut 400 jobs at its distribution arm, saying it had been operating in a "volatile and fluctuating" market. The proposed job losses will be spread across Britain, including 100 in the West Midlands, nearly 100 in North Wales, 50 in South Wales and 50 in Leeds, the steel giant said Thursday.

By DPA, Singapore : Dragonfly young could soon be the aquatic version of the canary in a coalmine, a researcher said in a published report Sunday. Just as the singing birds were used by miners to warn them of toxic air, young dragonflies that live in reservoirs and ponds hold the potential of alerting humans to water pollution, The Straits Times said.

Milan: Lawyers for Abdelmajid Touil, who was arrested in Italy over the March 18 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia, have asked for...

By Xinhua, Lhasa : Tibet will continue to open to the world, an official of the southwest China autonomous region said. "Tibet will maintain the opening-up policy as usual. Organizations and individuals from all over the world are always welcome to invest and carry out cooperation here if they have goodwill and sincerity," Ju Jianhua, director with the region's foreign affairs office, told a symposium on Friday. "But we resolutely oppose activities running counter to the claimed purposes of charity and public welfare under the disguise of joint cooperation," he stressed.

By KUNA, Tokyo : Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao vowed Wednesday to promote bilateral strategic, mutually beneficial relations, with holding regular summits and either of the two countries' leaders visiting the other country every year. During their summit meeting here, the two leaders also agreed to resolve a long-running dispute over energy rights in the East China Sea and to make the sea "a sea of peace, cooperation and friendship," according to a joint statement issued after the talks.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : Hours after Barack Obama's inauguration, the Senate swiftly approved six members of the new president's cabinet, but the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state was delayed by a day on a senator's objection. The Senate confirmed all six with a single voice vote a little more than three hours after Obama was sworn in to give his administration a head start, but a vote on Hillary Clinton was put off with Republican John Cornyn objecting to the unanimous vote.

By IANS, London : Hollywood couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are digging deep to help the victims of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. They've each promised to donate $50,000-a-year until 2015 to rebuild the country's schools. The Spanish stars joined British writer-director Paul Haggis at his Los Angeles home, Sunday, when he hosted a celebrity brunch for his charitable organisation Artists for Peace and Justice to raise funds for Haiti, reported hollywood.com.

By IANS, Brussels : The European Commission Friday announced a new three-year programme to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Southeast Asia and Africa. Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Sahel region in Africa will be the priority areas for the European Union's (EU) 2009-2011 anti-terrorism programme, the EuAsiaNews reported.

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By DPA

London : Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair Friday gave his "full support" to Gordon Brown, his likely successor, saying he was certain that Brown would make a "great prime minister."