International

By Fakir Hassen, IANS, Cape Town : A miniature Korean nuclear power station, a handmade Libyan pistol, African antelopes, six boxes of raw fish and a suit of clothes are among the strange gifts received by South African parliamentarians in the latest list that has been opened to public scrutiny here.

By SPA, Beijing : At least 21 people were killed and a dozen others hurt Tuesday when a bus and coal truck collided in China's northwest Xinjiang region, a state-run news agency reported. The head-on collision happened on a highway in a remote area, the Xinhua News Agency said. Two vehicles were damaged and three of the 12 injured were in serious condition, Xinhua said.

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

Washington/New Delhi : Three Indian cities are in line to be adopted for the government's "smart cities" project by way of technology and infrastructure...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush told a wary global audience Monday that the US economy was not headed for recession and that US forces in Iraq will face "tough fighting" in 2008 -- but are winning the war. The unpopular president, in excerpts of what the White House billed as his final State of the Union speech, also vowed to "confront" Iran if necessary to protect US soldiers or Washington's vital interests in the Gulf.

By IANS, London : A British woman minister who once posed for a magazine photo shoot in a provocative pose wearing a short red dress has quit, complaining the prime minister treated women as "female window dressing". "You have a two-tier government, your inner circle and then the remainder of cabinet," Europe Minister Caroline Flint said in a letter to British premier Gordon Brown, hours after he ignored her for promotion Friday.

By DPA Kathmandu : Tens of thousands of people took part in a rally in Nepal's capital Monday organized by seven ruling parties to express their commitment to hold key elections, scheduled for April 10. Thousands of people, many from outlying areas of Kathmandu, rallied through the city before assembling into a mass gathering. Addressing the gathering, top leaders repeatedly stressed that they would not postpone the elections to choose a constituent assembly. The polls have already been postponed three times since June 2007.

By Bernama Beijing : Police in China's biggest commercial hub have detained eight members of a taxi gang for allegedly ripping off foreign passengers, Xinhua news agency reported Friday. A total of 10 suspects were accused of blackmailing 13 passengers in less than two months and stealing 50,000 yuan (about US$7,022) in cash or goods, the traffic law-enforcement team under the Shanghai Municipal Communication Bureau said.

By DPA, Jakarta : A ferry carrying some 250 people on board sank in rough waters off the western Indonesian province of West Sulawesi early Sunday, leaving more than 200 missing, officials and media reports said. The Teratai Prima Kosong ferry left Pare-pare harbour Saturday evening en route to Samarinda in the eastern Kalimantan province on the Indonesian portion of Borneo Island, said Suhardi, an official at the Search and Rescue (SAR) agency in Makassar, the capital of South Sulwesi.

By Sudeshna Sarkar,IANS, Kathmandu : Ahead of the seventh round of vote Tuesday to elect new premier, Nepal's caretaker government said it would form a committee to investigate the scandal about the opposition Maoist party allegedly seeking millions of rupees from a "friend" in China to buy MPs’ votes.

By IANS, Washington : Former US vice president Dick Cheney had a heart transplant surgery, his office said Saturday.

By IANS, New York : Former American President Bill Clinton will be among many top leaders to address the seventh Pan-IIT Global Conference being held in Chicago in October. Kapil Sibal, Indian minister for human resource development; Sam Pitroda, Indian Knowledge Commission chairman; Aneesh Chopra, America's chief technology officer; and Meera Shankar, Indian ambassador in the US, will be among other keynote speakers at the Pan-IIT Global Conference to be held in Chicago from Oct 9-11.

By IANS/EFE,

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By SPA, Houma, Louisiana : A helicopter bound for U.S. offshore oil fields crashed in marshlands southwest of New Orleans, killing eight people and leaving a ninth with critical injuries, officials said, according to AP. The helicopter, operated by PHI Inc., crashed shortly after taking off Sunday afternoon from PHI's base in Amelia, Louisiana, company spokesman Richard Rovinelli said. The cause of the crash was not clear. Rovinelli did not know the type of helicopter or its exact destination.

By DPA Oschatz (Germany) : A 23-year-old man has been jailed for eight months for leading a racist mob that beat up and chased eight Indian men in the eastern German town of Muegeln last summer. The court in the town of Oschatz Tuesday rejected a proposal by prosecutors to suspend the term, saying Frank D. must go to prison as a "deterrent" to others and there were no legal grounds for leniency.

By RIA Novosti, Brussels : NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held an informal meeting on Friday with Russia's envoy to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, a spokesman for the Russian mission to NATO said. He said the diplomats met for lunch in a restaurant in Brussels, without giving any details of their conversation. NATO foreign ministers agreed on December 2 at a meeting in Brussels to gradually resume contacts with Moscow, suspended after Russia's armed conflict with Georgia in August.

By Prensa Latina, Madrid : The Spanish Communist Party (PCE) said fighting for the release of the Five Cuban anti-terrorists held in US prisons since 1998 means defending dignity and a real fight against terrorism. The PCE condemned last the Wednesday's ruling of the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals against Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez and Ramon Labanino. This verdict proves US Justice has been politicized and biased, so only pressure on the US government may finally make justice be served, Spanish communists claimed.

By DPA, Sydney : Two violent incidents have marred the start of the Australian election campaign. Police have charged two men in Adelaide after a Liberal Party candidate was allegedly punched during an argument over the treatment of asylum-seekers. Jassmine Wood told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that two men approached her and an assistant as they campaigned at a shopping centre. She said they criticised her party's border protection policy before throwing punches.

By SPA Hamburg : The situation in Kosovo was calm on Saturday, DPA quoted a German general serving with NATO in the southern Serbian province as saying ahead of Sunday's expected declaration of independence. General Robert Bund, head of the German contingent in the UN- mandated Kosovo force KFOR, told German radio there was "no sign of tension in any form." Bund said he expected the NATO-led multinational force to remain in Kosovo for a long period because of the time it would take for the territory to support itself.

By DPA, Johannesburg : South African police have arrested a man after discovering the carcasses of lions and rhinoceroses strewn around a house in the capital, Pretoria, a media report said Wednesday. Police were tipped off by the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals after an inspector stumbled across the bones at the residence in the upmarket Waterkloof suburb, the South African Press Association reported. Many diplomatic residences and an air force base are located in Waterkloof. Photos taken at the scene showed carcasses and skulls strewn around the ground.

By IANS, London: Singer Eric Clapton's watch has been bought by a collector for 2.3 million pounds at an auction.

By DPA, Pretoria : Jacob Zuma was sworn in as South Africa's new president here Saturday. Zuma becomes fourth democratically-elected president of the country since the end of apartheid in 1994. His African National Congress party won a resounding victory in April 22 general elections. Taking the oath of office administered by Chief Justice Pius Langa, Zuma, 67 - who was elected president by parliament Wednesday - promised to "obey, observe, uphold and maintain the constitution and all other laws of the republic."

By RIA Novosti, Beijing : China has allowed foreign tourists to visit Tibet for the first time since violent anti-government rallies in March in the restless autonomous region, the China Daily newspaper reported on Thursday. The unrest in early March in Tibet, which started when Buddhist monks took to the streets to mark the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule, left 19 people dead and 623 injured, according to official Chinese reports. The situation in the region has stabilized since then and the first foreign reporters were allowed in the region on June 20.

By DPA Manila : Five soldiers were killed Wednesday in a clash with communist rebels in a remote town in the southern Philippines, an army spokesman said. Colonel Benito De Leon said six soldiers were also wounded in the fighting in Cateel town in Davao Oriental province, 990 km south of Manila. "We lost five soldiers and six were wounded," he said. "The report is still sketchy, we are not sure if it was an ambush or an encounter." De Leon said the army has not received reports of rebel casualties.

By IANS, Bangui: At least four people were killed and seven went missing following an attack in a Central African Repubic (CAR) town, a source...

By IANS, Washington: North Korea has said it will suspend nuclear tests, long-range missile launches, and uranium enrichment activity as agreed with the US in last week's bilateral talks.

By IANS, Rio de Janeiro : Brazil has said it would donate $500,000 to help in relief measures in Japan that has been hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

By DPA, Berlin : German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who has been embroiled in a plagiarism scandal, will resign Tuesday, Bild newspaper reported.

By IANS, Washington : The US slapped visa ban on 20 senior Ukrainian officials and other people it accused of being behind a violent crackdown...

By IANS, Beijing : As many as 1,600 rescue workers have been pressed into service since the past two days to save the 153 miners trapped in a flooded mine in China's Shanxi province. The rescuers were busy Monday night pumping out water from more than 600 metres underground at the Wangjialing coal mine in Xiangning county, in what is being termed as one of the deadliest coal mine accidents in the country since two mines flooded in Shandong province in August 2007, killing 181 people.

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS, Toronto : Americans tested mustard gas on thousands of their own soldiers during World War II to know which race was more vulnerable to it, according to a Canadian historian. Susan Smith of Alberta University said Monday that the misguided race-specific mustard gas tests by the American military were carried out on White, African-American, Japanese-American and Puerto Rican soldiers to know its effectiveness against different races.

By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS, London : Leading politicians representing Britain's large Indian-origin population Thursday strongly condemned the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, saying the two countries are even more determined to protect their vibrant and resilient democracies. As British television news channels rolled out round-the-clock coverage of the attacks, a string of MPs telephoned IANS Wednesday night to speak of their shock and sense of outrage.

By IANS,

By M.R. Narayan Swamy New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) A Myanmar opposition leader living in India in exile after being sentenced to 25 years in jail in absentia wants New Delhi to actively support pro-democracy forces in his country. Tint Swe of the National League for Democracy (NLD) said that Myanmar rulers were cleverly playing the Sino-Indian card to their advantage and that India's economic and military aid to the junta was of no benefit to the people at large.

By IANS, New Delhi : A former employee of the US embassy here has been arrested for duping people by promising them jobs with the mission with forged appointment letters, police said. Somya Ranjan Dass was arrested Friday after Arvind Kumar complained to police that Dass had assured him of a job in the embassy but was only cheating him since July 2006, police said. Kumar said Dass took Rs.150,000 from him in instalments and gave him an appointment letter on the letterhead of the embassy bearing signatures of the embassy officials.

By IANS, New Delhi : With East Africa reeling under a severe drought, India offered all possible help and assistance in spurring a green revolution in Tanzania. Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo K. Pinda, who is on a four-day visit to India, held wide-ranging discussions with the External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna Tuesday, where the issue of agricultural cooperation was discussed in detail. Tanzania has offered to lease land to Indian private companies for a period of 99 years, as it pitched for increased investment in the agricultural sector.

By IANS,

London, Oct 25, IRNA ,Britain's trade unions are joining calls to demand that the government account for hundreds of deaths in police custody. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) expressed support at the remembrance procession to the prime minister's office Saturday which has been held annually by the United Friends and Families Campaign (UFFC) for the past 10 years. "The TUC believes that the state has a duty of care towards the people it takes into custody, and a responsibility to be open and accountable when deaths occur," said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

Bangkok : A royal command appointing Thailand's interim cabinet headed by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha was announced Sunday, with five deputy prime ministers included...

By IRNA Berlin : German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi have expressed their interest in a "good and close partnership", declaring an official end to the dispute over the Dalai Lama's meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin last September. Speaking at a joint news conference with Steinmeier at the foreign ministry in Berlin on Tuesday, Yang said Beijing was interested in promoting bilateral ties based on "mutual respect and non-interference."

By Xinhua Kathmandu : Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has, in his International Women's Day message, urged women to take a defining role in politics and make the April 10 constituent assembly (CA) elections successful, The Rising Nepal daily reported Saturday. Koirala said women should cooperate and participate actively in the democratic exercise, as it is an historical opportunity associated with the prosperity and future of the country.

By IANS, Toronto: Canadian custom officials have seized an illegal consignment of 'gutka' (chewing tobacco) from an Indian shopkeeper in the city of Winnipeg. Gutka as well as many ayurvedic medicines from India are banned in Canada. The illegal consignment of gutka, weighing 150 kg, was brought into Canada from the US, the authorities said Monday. Fifty-year-old Yog Rahi Gupta, who owns the Indian Spice House in the city, and his 53-year-old wife have been charged for bringing the contraband into Canada.

By IANS, London : Britain plans to build Europe's largest medical research centre where thousand of scientists can work together on different projects. The 1.4-hectare complex worth 600 million pound will have separate research laboratories for everything from stem cells to influenza when it opens in 2015. The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) is being funded by a range of government and charitable organisations including the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and University College London.

By IANS, Washington: The fungus-gardening ant is the only species of its kind to have dispensed with sex or males, says a new study. Most social insects, wasps, ants and bees are used to life without males. Their colonies are well run by swarms of sterile sisters lorded over by an egg-laying queen. But, eventually, all social insect species have the ability to produce a crop of males who go forth to fertilise new queens and propagate their species.

By Xinhua Wellington : New Zealand and China plan to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in early April, New Zealand Trade Minister Phil Goff announced Tuesday. "Being the first developed country to negotiate a comprehensive FTA with China will present New Zealand with a unique platform for profiling our businesses in China and for strengthening commercial relationships," he said in a press release. "Finalising this FTA will be a significant achievement for New Zealand. We must make sure we take full advantage of the opportunities it will open up in China," he added.

By NNN-Bernama,

By IANS, New York : US first lady and new style icon Michelle Obama will feature on the cover of Vogue magazine's March issue and will appear in an eight-page spread that includes clothes from her own wardrobe. While nearly every first lady - beginning with Herbert Hoover's wife, Lou, in 1929 - has been photographed for the fashion magazine, only Hillary Clinton was featured on the cover, in December 1998, said Patrick O'Connell, Vogue spokesperson.

By IANS, Beijing: China will cut the prices of gasoline and diesel from Friday.

By Bernama, Hanoi : Telecommunications industry insiders are predicting that 3G (third generation) technology will be introduced in Vietnam this year, the Vietnam news agency (VNA) reported. With 3G technology, mobile providers in Vietnam will be able to provide more value-added services for their mobile users such as videophone, on-line video streaming and high-speed internet and music download.

By IANS Bogotá : Colombia's left-wing guerrillas and extreme-right paramilitaries seduce young girls to recruit them for the armed organisations, a Unicef official has said. "The situation of the girls and the sexual use to which they are subjected is alarming, even in the case of the girlfriend or partner of a commander of illegal armed groups," Eduardo Gallardo, Unicef's child protection official for Colombia, told Radio Caracol Monday.

Paris: French police have arrested four people, including a policewoman, suspected of being linked to the gunman who killed four people in a Jewish...

By AINS, Beijing: China Thursday released a report that said the country has fulfilled all targets of its national human rights action plan.

By RIA Novosti, Makhachkala (Russia) : The interior minister of the southern Russian republic of Daghestan was shot dead Friday afternoon at a wedding reception here. "Daghestani Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov died of gunshot wounds on the way to the hospital," an interior ministry spokesman said. A police source said the minister was shot by a sniper from the rooftop of a neighbouring building when he and several other high-level officials walked out of a restaurant at around 1.00 p.m.

By DPA Nanjing : It is a country where people caught smuggling religious texts or organising illicit services can face years in jail. Yet China is about to become home to the world's biggest Bible factory, producing a staggering one million copies a month. The aircraft hangar-sized plant in an industrial park outside the eastern city of Nanjing will be capable of producing more than one Bible every second and is expected to supply one quarter of all the world's Bibles by 2009.

By IANS, London : The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) says it has yet to reach an agreement to broadcast the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi despite the claims of chairman of Organising Committee Suresh Kalmadi that they have struck "good deals with broadcasters in Australia and Britain". Kalmadi last month had said that they had earned 37.5 million pounds -- 12.5 milion pounds more than the original target. Australian broadcasters' Network Ten and Foxtel announced two years ago that they had secured TV rights for Delhi in a shared deal.

By IANS, Raipur : Chhattisgarh police Monday arrested three Chinese engineers in the case of the under-construction chimney crash at Vedanta Resources Plc-controlled Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (Balco) that killed 41 workers Sep 23 last year. The engineers were employed with the Chinese construction major, Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (SEPCO) that was building Balco's 1200-MW thermal power plant in Korba town, about 240 km from state capital Raipur.

By Sudeshna Sarkar Kathmandu, March 25 (IANS) Six years after she was catapulted into media headlines worldwide following the mysterious massacre of Nepal's royal family in the tightly guarded palace in Kathmandu, the dead crown prince's love, Devyani Rana, is making waves again. The svelte, beautiful Devyani, who last year exorcised her links with ill-fated crown prince Dipendra by marrying into Indian aristocracy, is now back in her homeland to hit the campaign trail for the crucial April election.

Hanoi: Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang will pay a state visit to Japan between March 16-19, Vietnamese foreign ministry announced Sunday. He will visit the...

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Friday began a seven-day tour of Portugal and four Latin American countries, during which he will attend a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific economic council (Apec), a presidential aide said. Medvedev will discuss his initiative to sign a pan-European security treaty and measures to fight the consequences of the global financial crisis with his Portuguese counterpart Anibal Cavaco Silva and Prime Minister Jose Socrates Friday, Sergei Prikhodko said.

By Arun Kumar Washington, Nov 11 (IANS) President George W. Bush wants Germany, Europe and the US to work closely together with emerging economies like India and Brazil to advance the Doha Round of world trade talks. "We had a very good discussion on Doha," he said Saturday at a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Bush's Texas ranch without outlining his proposal on how to move forward the stalled talks

By Prensa Latina, Tokyo : Thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in the northern Japanese city of Hokkaido in advance of next week's summit of the eigth most developed nations (G8). Farmers, students, trade union representatives, activists and pacifist took over the streets under the slogan “Stop G-8 Summit that only creates poverty,” Protesters were carrying messages for G8 leaders asking them to take action on a number of issues, including soaring food prices.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will on Wednesday attend an international engineering forum in the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow, where he will meet with world leaders and executives. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Siemens CEO Peter Loescher are expected to attend Engineering Technologies 2010. The forum will run from June 30 to July 4. It will show the capabilities and prospects of the Russian machine-building industry. Some 25 conferences and round tables involving over 1,500 delegates from Russian and foreign companies will be held.

By DPA, Moscow : Vladimir Putin was confirmed prime minister Thursday in a near unanimous parliamentary vote that underscored his continued power, one day after passing the Kremlin to his protege Dmitry Medvedev. A total of 396 of the 450 State Duma (lower house of Russian parliament) members voted in favour of Putin's nomination Thursday. By making the transition from president to premier, Putin ensures he remains a central figure. Many believe he will carry more weight than Medvedev, who owes his presidency solely to Putin's support.

By IANS, Washington : Preschoolers can be taught reading skills for later school success, and imparted socials skills for making friends and avoiding conflicts, according to a new study. The findings address long standing concerns on whether preschool education programmes should emphasise academic achievement or social and emotional development.

Jammu: The Pakistan Army resorted to unprovoked firing at Indian positions on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, triggering gun battles,...

By RIA Novosti New York : The trial of a high-profile Texas businessman, charged with paying some $4 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime as part of the oil-for-food programme, has started in Manhattan's federal court. Oscar Wyatt, 83, faces over 70 years in prison if found guilty of secretly providing funds and equipment to the Iraqi government in exchange for contracts under the controversial UN oil-for-food programme, which ran 1996 through 2003.

By IANS

Washington : The US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), a political awareness group of Indian Americans, Saturday rapped US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's campaign for its "anti-Indian American stereotyping".