International

By IANS/EFE, Buenos Aires : A fighter plane crashed in Argentina, killing its pilot, the Argentine air force said.

By KUNA, London : Sir John Major, the former British Prime Minister, Friday attacked the UK government's plans to hold terrorism suspects without charge for 42 days. The former Conservative leader said Prime Minister Gordon Brown's proposal to extend the detention without trial period would be more likely to boost terrorist recruitment than tackle the security threat to Britain. Writing in The Times newspaper today, Sir John also said the Labour government's response to terrorism had eroded civil liberties and that the invasion of Iraq had damaged Britain's reputation overseas.

By EFE, Mexico City : Residents of Mexico City went back to work Monday in a relatively empty city where schools, universities, restaurants, movies, museums and other establishments remained closed to prevent the further spread of the swine flu that has claimed 110 lives nationwide. Public transport continues to operate normally in this metropolitan area of nearly 20 million people, but passengers on buses and riding the metro system wore surgical face masks to protect themselves from contagion.

By Joydeep Gupta, IANS, Poznan (Poland) : Do not slide back in your commitment to fight global warming, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Thursday urged ministers from around the world gathered here for the climate change summit. Hours after speaking at the opening of the "high-level segment" of the Dec 1-12 summit, Ban Ki-moon sought leadership from all countries over the issue. He was speaking in the backdrop of a situation where industrialised countries have been going back on their commitments citing the financial crisis.

By DPA, Brussels : Beijing must step up its product safety efforts, European Union (EU) commissioner Meglena Kuneva said Thursday. He cited figures which show that most of the dangerous consumer goods on sale in the EU - a third of them toys - are made in China. "While we have made real progress with China, there is a lot more to be done," said Kuneva, who holds the EU's consumer protection portfolio.

By DPA, Bogota : Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that an agreement granting the US military access to the seven military bases was unconstitutional because it lacked parliamentary approval. The deal, struck last year, represents an international treaty and therefore must be put before Congress for approval before it can enter into force, the court ruled Tuesday. Then-president Alvaro Uribe in 2009 granted the US access to seven bases for the fight against drug traffickers after the US had to end a similar agreement with Ecuador.

By IANS, Beijing : More than 36,000 civil service officials in China are investigated annually for allegedly committing crimes while on duty, a report said.

By IANS,

By IANS, Santo Domingo : Authorities in Dominican Republic have seized 1.5 tonnes of cocaine and arrested three people for drug-trafficking.

By IANS, New Delhi : India and South Korea Friday agreed to launch negotiations for a civil nuclear energy agreement, even as economic ties continued to expand after implementation of a comprehensive economic pact. This was discussed during a India-South Korea joint commission meeting in Seoul Friday, which was chaired by Indian External Affairs minister S. M. Krishna and Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan.

By IANS, Washington : The US and Europe must give Pakistan $4-5 billion in urgent aid or risk seeing the nuclear-armed country slip into chaos, two leading US foreign policy voices warned Tuesday. Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican former senator Chuck Hagel, now chair of the Atlantic Council, a think tank, were to release a formal report Wednesday appealing for international help to stabilise Pakistan, Geo TV reported.

By DPA, Miami: Hurricane Ike has become a strong hurricane, as another storm pummelled parts of the Caribbean, and Louisiana residents began to return to their homes in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. Hurricane Ike, currently located about 980 km east-northeast of the Leeward Islands, gained strength quickly Wednesday and was upgraded to a major category 4 storm late in the evening after beginning the day as a tropical storm, the National Hurricane Centre said.

By Xinhua, Canberra : Australian police said on Wednesday they had smashed a major interstate drugs syndicate after raids across Victoria state netted a haul of the deadly drugice, luxury vehicles, a significant amount of money and an arsenal of unlicensed weapons. Drug squad investigators swooped on four properties, including a luxury mansion, in Melbourne, seizing a Mercedes Benz and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and arresting four men.

By IANS, London : Politicians and scientists have expressed outrage after the leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP) was selected to represent the European Parliament at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen next week. Nick Griffin, who last week described climate change campaigners as "cranks", confirmed Saturday that he would attend as the representative of the parliament's environmental committee, The Observer newspaper reported Sunday.

New York : Politicians have a knack of saying one thing and then going back on it soon. That happens with their tweets too. But...

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS,

By IRNA, London : The world must act now to prevent the collapse of a 2005 peace deal in Sudan, ten international aid agencies warned Thursday. The aid agencies, including British-based Oxfam International, called for urgent diplomatic effort to prop up fragile five-year-old comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) that ended decades of civil strife. "With landmark elections and a referendum on the horizon, the peace deal is fragile and the violence likely to escalate even further unless there is urgent international engagement," they said in a joint briefing paper.

By DPA Lima : The death toll of the powerful earthquake that struck central Peru had climbed to at least 437, the Institute for Civil Defence in Lima said. Civil Defence chief Luis Palomino said 829 people were injured and 16,659 families suffered damage to their property in Wednesday's quake, the worst in 27 years in Peru. Peruvian Fire Department commander Roberto Ocno Thursday put the death toll "between 500 and 510" people, and estimated the likely figure of injured at 1,600.

By IANS Madrid : The victims of the attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, are the main characters of "Donde Dios No Estuvo" (God Was Not There), the first novel about the train-bombings that left nearly 200 dead and some 1,800 injured, the Spanish news agency EFE said. Sonsoles Onega, who was in El Pozo station that day as a reporter for CNN+ television and who afterwards followed the investigations and the court trials step by step, has based a work that is part fact and part fiction on testimonies gathered over the past three years.

By Nityanand Shukla, IANS, Ranchi : Strange though it may sound, a Christian priest here is getting his own grave prepared so that there is no dispute over his last rites when he dies. Father Alfaro, 65-year-old Spaniard, teaches in Kamra village under Torpa block of Khuti district, around 70 km from here. He arrived here at Kamra eight years ago and opened a school to teach children in this one of the most backward areas of the state.

By IANS, Pyongyang : North Korea's army chief, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho, has been relieved of his post due to his illness, Xinhua reported Monday, citing the official KCNA news agency.

By IANS, London: A 26-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing thousands of pounds of damage to more than 100 cars in two streets in Bristol.

By NNN-Prensa Latina Moscow : Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Serguei Lavrov begins a tour of various Latin American countries this week, including Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay, the Foreign Office reported. After taking part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum held in Sydney, Australia, Lavrov left for South America on Monday in his first tour of that region this year. According to his agenda, the Russian Foreign minister started an official visit to Peru on Tuesday, where he held talks with his peer Jose Antonio Garcia.

By Xinhua Kathmandu : A cabinet meeting held on Sunday morning has endorsed the names of seven Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) leaders recommended to the post of five ministers and two state ministers in the coalition government. According to a report from the leading website eKantipur.com, CPN-M Chairman Prachanda had submitted a list of their ministerial candidates to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Saturday.

By IRNA, London : British voters were going to the polls Thursday in the first electoral test for Prime Minister Gordon Brown since replacing Tony Blair last June. In total, there are 3,920 council seats being contested spread across 137 local authorities in England and all 22 in Wales. Predictions were that the ruling Labour Party could lose more than 200. Elections are also being held for London Mayor in what is seen as a two-horse race between Labour's Ken Livingstone, who is seeking his third consecutive four-year term and his flamboyant Conservative rival Boris Johnson.

By Xinhua, Beijing : The toll in China's contaminated baby food scandal has risen to four with the death of a baby in northwestern province of Xinjiang, provincial authorities said Thursday. The death occurred at a hospital in the Mongolian city of Bayingolin, the health department said on its website, but gave no details. In addition, 86 babies in the region had fallen ill after drinking the milk powder contaminated by industrial chemical melamine, believed to increase protein content, the department said.

By IANS, By RIA Novosti,

By Xinhua, Moscow : U.S. charge d'affaires in Belarus Jonathan Moore said Wednesday that 10 U.S. diplomats will leave the former Soviet republic within 72 hours under the requests of Belarus' authorities, news agencies reported. "We will do everything possible so that the U.S. diplomats leave the country within the required time limit," Moore was quoted as telling a news conference after being summoned to the Belorussian foreign ministry. The Belarussian Foreign Ministry asked the U.S. embassy to cut its staff to five plus the ambassador, the reports said.

By IANS Kathmandu : Amid mounting allegations of lawlessness by Nepal's Maoist guerrillas, a 71-year-old former royalist is making an unusual allegation of horseplay against the rebels. Bakhat Bahadur Kunwar, who was forced to leave his home in Parbat district in western Nepal because of the communist insurgents, says the rebels have captured his horse, which he said is dearer to him than his seven sons. At a time there is growing clamour against the Maoists that they have been seizing people's land, houses and cars, Kunwar's travail is unusual.

By DPA, Moscow : More than a year after the death of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, security forces have seized the video archive of his personal cameraman, Kommersant daily reported Thursday. Secret service agents and officers from several other agencies confiscated some 600 tapes with recordings from Yeltsin's political career. Yeltsin's former cameraman Alexander Kuznezov seemed shocked by the action, accusing the security authorities of disrupting his work on a documentary about the "state of democracy in modern Russian."

Paris, Nov 29, IRNA, New outbreak of riots in the Paris suburbs has embarrassed French government. The spectre of the riots spreading from a suburb (banlieue) to another in a ghastly repeat of November 2005 looms ominously over the country. Back then, Sarkozy was interior minister and won an unwelcome reputation in the poor high-immigration suburbs for his tough-talking on crime. Since his election he has fought hard to pose as a unifier - promising to bring jobs and security back to troubled housing estates and appointing several ministers of immigrant background.

By IANS, Dubai : The world's commercial property markets are going to see increased investments from sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in the next few years, especially from the Gulf, according to a new report. The new global report of the American real estate services giant CB Richard Ellis says that SWFs will potentially invest around $725 billion in the next seven years in the global commercial property markets.

By RIA Novosti, Kiev (Ukraine) : Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko has signed a decree to terminate all agreements covering the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in its territory. According to the decree, the Ukranian cabinet will prepare a draft law by July 20, 2008, for the implementation of the decision. "The president has instructed the government to make a comprehensive assessment of the consequences of the temporary presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine within two months," the document says.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia has launched a special social networking site to encourage interaction among Information and Technology (IT) professionals. The project is part of the Russian government's efforts to create an electronic public service system, intended to help fight corruption and red tape. The regionalochka.ru website, designed for "employees of Russia's regional administrations, charged with IT development, administrative reform and transition to providing state and municipal services online", is currently operating in a test mode.

By IANS, Mogadishu : The body of a Somali pirate who reportedly drowned soon after receiving a huge ransom has washed ashore with $153,000 in cash, BBC reported Monday. The man was one of a group of pirates who seized the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star in November. They reportedly received $3 million for freeing the tanker but five were said to have drowned after fleeing. A relative of the drowned pirate told the BBC the family was now trying to dry out the recovered money.

Washington: India and the US have agreed to deepen their already close collaboration on counter-terrorism, particularly the threat posed by Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba...

By Prensa Latina, Moscow : The Russian mother ship of the Pacific Fleet, Variag Cuiser, began to test firepower on ground, sea and aerial targets. Navy Spokesman Roman Martov, said the crew of the "carrier killer" -under NATO standards- will test in high seas the anti-air system aboard against every flying target. On its first sail after undergoing overall repair, Variag has been fitted devices able to annihilate enemy naval and ground units from long distance.

By IANS, Banjul (Gambia) : Three Gambian nationals and three Senegalese were arrested after over one tonne of cannabis was found in their possession. Officers of the National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA) and the military arrested the six offenders in Seewol village in the country's western region, Xinhua reported Thursday. The arrest was made following an intelligence report about suspected drug traffickers in Seewol, NDEA public relations officer Abdoulie Ceesay said.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : As the US presidential race enters the home stretch, Democratic nominee Barack Obama has opened up a double-digit lead, with rival Republican candidate John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin losing shine, a new poll shows. A growing number of voters say they're now comfortable with Obama's values, background and ability to serve as commander in chief, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

By IANS, Jakarta : A total of 15 crew members are yet to be found after a cargo ship with 27 people on board capsized off eastern Indonesia Sunday morning, Xinhua reported.

By IANS/EFE,

By IANS/EFE, Mexico City : The leader of a gang that carried out kidnappings in Mexico's northern state of Chihuahua has become the first woman in the country to be sentenced to life in prison.

By DPA, Manila : The World Health Organization (WHO) is rushing more medical supplies to China to help treat more than 130,000 victims of a deadly earthquake last week, the organisation's Manila-based Western Pacific region office said Thursday. WHO said it is also sending an expert team to collaborate with the Chinese government in rebuilding its health infrastructure in the aftermath of the May 12 magnitude 8.0 temblor that killed at least 41,000 people.

By IANS London : A Hindu organisation in Britain is planning to challenge the ban on yoga classes by two churches on the grounds that it breaches the country's Equality Act 2006. Last week, priests at the Silver Street Baptist Church and St James' Church of England in Taunton, Somerset, had banned yoga classes for children by branding it as a "sham" and "un-Christian".

By IANS, London : Two Facebook users, who allegedly tried to incite mob violence during last week's London riots, have been sentenced to four years in prison.

By IRNA

London : The British Foreign Office is changing its travel advice for countries to include a grade scale of the threat of terrorism, Foreign Office Minister Meg Munn has announced.

"We are now introducing four generic threat descriptors, intended to clarify the scale of the terrorist threat to the travelling public," Munn said.

By SPA Copenhagen, Denmark : U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday the United States and Russia have moved closer to an accommodation on U.S. missile defenses in Europe, and he expressed hope that new steps will be agreed on in weekend talks between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

By IRNA, London : British charity Save the Children has expressed fears that number of children living without the basics in the UK will rise as result of government policy

By IANS/EFE,

By IANS, Canberra : Australia announced Monday that it will increase aid to Myanmar.

Washington : The George Washington University is preparing to ban from its campus an important Hindu religious symbol - the swastika - because it...

By RIA Novosti, Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) : The toll in Saturday's nightclub fire in the Russian Urals city of Perm has reached 128, authorities said Thursday. "The number of fire victims has reached 128. In addition, 103 people remain in hospitals... and another five are receiving out-patient treatment," the regional emergency authorities said. The fire engulfed the Lame Horse nightclub in the west Urals city in the early hours of Saturday after an indoor fireworks display went awry.

New York : Large companies with prominent brand images and good corporate reputations are more vulnerable to be "named and shamed" by activists than...

By Xinhua, Moscow : A 6.9-magnitude earthquake Saturday jolted the Sea of Okhotsk region in southeast Russia, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. The tremor occurred at 6:13 a.m. Moscow time (0213 GMT), the Kamchatka office of the geophysics service of the Russian Academy of Sciences said. There was no immediate report of casualty or damage to property, the Kamchatka territorial emergencies department said, adding that there is no tsunami threat for Kamchatka peninsula.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : The United States will continue talking to Iran, but wants Moscow's cooperation in sending Tehran a signal that defiance of international demands will not go unpunished, a senior U.S. envoy has said. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns was in Moscow on Thursday to discuss Iran and arms reduction with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. "The United States believes we should keep the door open to negotiations and involve Iran in cooperation," he said in an interview with Gazeta daily published in Russian.

By Jaideep Sarin, IANS Hong Kong : China's crackdown on the Tibetan unrest in Lhasa and elsewhere in the mainland, reminiscent of the army action in 1989, raises doubt on whether there has been any softening of Beijing's repressive policy towards Tibet. Mainland China based analysts feel that the violence in Tibet will be dealt with firmly, notwithstanding the government's preoccupation to brighten its human rights records in the run-up to the Olympics.

By DPA, Oslo : A new common marriage law that will allow same-sex couples in Norway to marry won broad approval Wednesday in parliament, and was welcomed with applause and cheers from the public gallery. "It is a historic day," Gunn Karin Gjul of the Labour Party said during the debate. Gjul, a member of the parliamentary committee on family affairs, compared the passing of the bill to "universal suffrage and the gender equality law." The amended marriage law was criticized by the opposition Christian Democrats and populist Progress Party, who voted against.

By IANS, New York : Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a prominent Hindu guru and scholar who was charged three weeks ago with groping two underage girls over ten years ago and arrested, has been allowed to leave the US on a whopping $10 million guarantee that he would return to face trial. The 79-year-old founder of Barsana Dham, a 200-acre temple and ashram complex near Austin in Texas -- one of the biggest Hindu temples in the US -- is out on a $1 million bail.

By Xinhua Washington : US Democrats lashed out at President George W. Bush's speech on Iraq, calling for "changing the course". Senator Jack Reed, who Thursday delivered the Democratic Party's response to Bush's speech, rejected Bush's plan of partially pulling back some 27,000 troops from Iraq, saying the president once again "failed to provide either a plan to successfully end the war or a convincing rationale to continue it". "The president rightfully invoked the valour of our troops in his speech, but his plan does not amount to real change," he said.

By Daniela David, DPA Kodiak (US) : Alaska is considered one of the prime destinations for people who like to get far from the madding crowd and who long to spend their days in unadulterated, natural surroundings. Sport fishing, hiking and wildlife observation are very popular thereabouts and Kodiak Island, the 9,000-sq km land mass across the Shelikof Strait to the south of Alaska, is one of the best places to pursue all of these activities. It is home to countless grizzly bears, eagles and fascinating marine life, including whales.

By Bernama Seoul : South Korea and the United States will sign a deal on a visa waiver program (VWP) for South Koreans later this month on the sidelines of their summit, but visa-free trips to the U.S. will only be possible from the end of this year, Yonhap news agency quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying on Friday.

By DPA, Brussels/The Hague : Congo's former vice president and opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba has been arrested in Belgium on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges for his involvement in Central African Republic, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has said.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS Kathmandu : Ignoring the move to abolish the country's two-century-old monarchy and turn the Himalayan kingdom into a federal republic, diehard royalists have sworn to celebrate the crown prince's birthday with pomp, even if it means a confrontation with the Maoist guerrillas. The year 2007 could easily be the annus horribilis for Nepal's Crown Prince Paras who faced major trouble, including the possible loss of his inheritance and a severe health scare.

By IANS, Melbourne : Life in this Australian city does not live up to expectations, say overseas female students in a survey that revealed "international students have been seriously affected by the current housing situation in Melbourne". In a report by the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition that involved interviews with 17 women, all but one respondent said Melbourne was a "tolerant and multicultural place". But, 11 of them believed their ethnicity had negatively affected their "chances in life" in Australia, The Age said Sunday.

By Xinhua Washington : A strong earthquake rocked the western state of Nevada in the US Thursday morning, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The USGS reported the quake was 6.3 degrees on the Richter scale and at a depth of some 10 km below the surface. The epicentre of the quake was about 250 km from Salt Lake City, Utah. Officials in Nevada said there were unconfirmed reports of damage to buildings there. Residents from Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho reported feeling the quake.

By IANS, Paris : Global warming has a strong impact on the poor and world leaders must pay attention to social injustice while negotiating climate deal, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has said. The impact of global warming is much stronger on the poorest populations, however, "when it is time to negotiate the climate issue, inequities are not taken into account", Sen said addressing a conference at the University of Political Science here Tuesday.

By RIA Novosti, Vienna : A 73-year-old Austrian electrical engineer who has confessed to keeping his daughter locked in a basement for 24 years and fathering seven children by her is to face intense police questioning over the coming days. Police want to know how Josef Fritzl was able to dig a warren of rooms extending under his house and garden, and bring up three children who have never seen the light of day, without the rest of his family or the neighbors ever finding out.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : Even after losing his crown and being turned out of the palace, Nepal's dethroned king Gyanendra continues to face demands for more. Now, a Nepali farmer is laying claim to the dozens of cows herded in the former Narayanhity royal palace, saying they were promised to him. Less than two weeks of being officially proclaimed a republic, Nepal is discovering new things about the former palace that was once prohibited land for the government, let alone common people.

By IANS Bogota : Six Colombian rebels have been killed in the first fighting of 2008 in different parts of the country, EFE news agency reported Wednesday. The 3rd Brigade troops killed three rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Ventura, a rural section of the southwestern province of Cauca. Another FARC rebel was killed in a clash with troopers in Bucarasica, in the northeastern province of Norte de Santander, the army said. Two other rebels were killed in fighting with the army near Costa Rica in the town of El Carmen de Bolivar.

By IANS, London : Schoolchildren who witness violence, shootouts or hear gunshots is traumatised by them, a new study confirms. Young people living in US cities experience and witness high levels of serious and lethal violence, which leaves lasting negative effects on their health. Although the mechanisms are yet to be confirmed, one plausible explanation is that the body's stress-response system is involved. Cortisol is a hormone regulated by the stress-response system. Cortisol levels are typically highest in the morning and fall gradually throughout the day.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Moscow must develop a set of measures to influence world oil prices. "As a major exporter and producer of crude and oil products, Russia cannot remain on the sidelines with regard to the formulation of world pricing for crude," Putin said Monday while meeting heads of Russia's top oil companies to discuss crude export duty cuts amid the ongoing global financial crisis. "We must develop an entire range of measures that would allow us to actively influence the market situation," Putin said.

By IANS, London : Britain's immigration minister has climbed down over plans to curb immigration, prompting the opposition to accuse the government of offering “no action”. Minister Phil Woolas said last week that he favoured placing a cap on immigration because he wanted to limit Britain's population to below 70 million and ensure that British jobs went to Britons at a time of financial crisis. But he said on BBC Sunday: "I think, frankly, there's a lot of nonsense talked about the cap....

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : As Colombo declared victory against the Tamil Tiger rebels, the US asked Sri Lanka to turn the page on its past and engage Tamils to create a political arrangement that protects the rights of all its citizens "This is an opportunity for Sri Lanka to turn the page on its past and build a Sri Lanka rooted in democracy, tolerance and respect for human rights," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Monday.

By Arun Kumar, Washington : Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the US relationship with New Delhi is "essential" as it builds constructive ties with India, China and Russia, major nations that would have a lot to say in an emerging world. The US is advancing its relationship with India as part of a wide-ranging diplomatic agenda to meet today's daunting challenges topped by the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan," she said in an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday.

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By DPA, New York: Bank of America Corp, the largest US bank, plans to shrink its network of 6,100 branches by 10 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. CEO Kenneth Lewis announced the news to investors last week at a meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the company is based, the report said. The cuts follow two decades of expansion. "We don't have a final plan for the ultimate number of branches," James Mahoney, head of corporate communications for the company," said. "Our vision is the network will be managed downward over time."

By IANS, Mexico City : Mexico will redouble austerity measures as part of an emergency plan to help families deal with the impact of global food crisis, EFE news agency reported Wednesday. In a nationally broadcast address Tuesday, President Felipe Calderon announced a six-point strategy to guarantee sufficient supply of food products for consumers while promoting agricultural produces and measures to augment income of the poorest section of the population. "This will also require a great budgetary effort and my government will be the first to set an example," Calderon said.

By IANS, Bangkok : Thailand's Constitution Court Wednesday rejected a petition filed by an opposition leader seeking the court's ruling on whether the Feb 2...

By Arul Louis United Nations : Sustainable development will be high on the agenda when General Assembly President-elect Peter Thomson visits India next week...

By DPA, Wellington : A 75-year-old New Zealand man has been jailed for two years on 27 charges of possessing objectionable images, mainly of young boys in sexual poses or acts, following a tip-off from police in Germany, news reports said Thursday. The Department of Internal Affairs said that Edward Kent of Christchurch was the oldest person to be prosecuted for possessing sex pictures obtained via the Internet.

Kabul: The Afghan foreign ministry summoned Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan Sayed Ibrar Hussain on Thursday and protested over what it described as indiscriminate firing...

By IANS, Yangon: Myanmar has established diplomatic ties with Armenia, official media reported Friday.

By ANTARA News/Xinhua Panama City : Two prisoners were killed and seven people injured in a riot in a Panamanian prison on Tuesday. The Panamanian police said the riot occurred in a prison 350 km west of the capital Panama City and the situation was under control after the riot squad used tear shells. Two inmates, who were in their 20s, were killed during the riot. Police said the two were indicted for crimes related to drug trafficking, therefore they did not rule out the possibility that the riot was related to organized crimes.

By KUNA, Paris : France said on Monday that it was in close contact with the Somali government regarding the fate of six sea pirates captured Saturday by French Special Forces. The pirates had been involved in the week-long hostage taking aboard the luxury yacht "Le Ponant" before fleeing Friday, allegedly with a ransom for the boat and its 30-member crew, 22 of whom were French and eight Philippino.

By DPA, Cairo : A senior Al Qaeda leader in a video distributed Wednesday urged Muslims to launch a holy war against Chinese "invaders" in response to the "massacre" of Uighurs in western China. "The atheist criminals have long used the most despicable, cruel and brutal means against Muslims in Turkistan," said Abu Yayha al-Libi, who is sometimes identified as the commander in Afghanistan of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. "Thousands of Muslims were killed, and no one knows about them," he said in the 20-minute video, referring to Uighurs living in China.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : As the world economy comes out of a deep global recession, global activity is forecast to expand by about 3 percent in 2010 after contracting by about 1 percent in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections. Though well below the rates achieved before the crisis, these projections in the October 2009 World Economic Outlook (WEO) reflect modest upward revisions to those in the July 2009 WEO Update. The WEO was released Thursday in Istanbul where the IMF-World Bank group is holding its annual meeting this year.

By IANS, Beijing : China has shut down over 1,000 illegal coal mines in a countrywide crackdown, an official said.

By SPA, Brussels, Belgium : Belgian newspapers reported recently that the number of new Muslim converts during the last twelve months ranged between 500 to 600 persons. The Belgian sources said that this figure reflects a decline in the proportion of new Muslim Converts which usually ranges between 1000 to 1200 people annually. Karim Guimart in-charge of Muslim Society said the decline is due to the fact that Islam is "no longer" the focus and concentration of the media in recent times, contrary to what was recorded in the years that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001.

By IANS, Buenos Aires : Two people were killed when a helicopter of the Argentinean television channel C5N crashed here in the capital city. The chopper went down at 9.45 a.m. local time Friday (1245 GMT) in the Vicente Lopez district of Buenos Aires, killing C5N channel cameraman Fernando Gonzalez and pilot Enrique Miguel Villa on board, Xinhua reported citing a statement from the channel. The cameraman was filming a car accident, which occurred early Friday morning in the Sol highway near the capital.

BY DPA, Washington : India is incapable of adequately responding to the threat of terrorism because of poor coordination between regional authorities and an inefficient legal system, the US State Department said in a report released Thursday. The State Department's annual report on global terrorism for 2008 said that India was among the world's top targets despite a strong government commitment to fighting terrorism.

By IANS, By RIA Novosti,

By BERNAMA, A Palestinian woman walks past the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) headquarters in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza February 6, 2009. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu MustafaFebruary 7, 2009 - GAZA (Reuters) - A major United Nations aid agency said it suspended importing goods into the Gaza Strip on Friday because the Islamist group Hamas that rules the territory had seized supplies for the second time this week. Hamas denied it confiscated any supplies, saying it was a misunderstanding between drivers due to a lack of coordination.

By IRNA, New York : A little more than three weeks before the fall election, Bill and Hillary Clinton joined together for the first time in this critical Pennsylvania battleground to campaign for their once bitter rival, Barack Obama, at a rally with vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden. Former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton explained to voters why they think Barack Obama's Democratic ticket is the best choice for middle-class families.

By D. Arul Rajoo, Bernama, Bangkok : With over 10,000 people feared dead and millions made homeless by the Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, neighbouring countries like Thailand and Malaysia have been asked to provide humanitarian support by easing immigration rules to possible refugees, an exile leader said Tuesday. Soe Aung, the spokesperson of the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) based in Thailand, said he could not rule out the possibility of thousands of people seeking refuge in other countries following the tropical cyclone that struck the military-ruled country.

By DPA, Washington : A 35-second earthquake in January irrevocably changed Haiti's future, killing more than 222,000 people and shattering the foundation of the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Kiev : Ukrainian troops have re-established control of the border with Russia, Parliament Speaker Alexandr Turchynov said here Friday. Turchynov said the Ukrainian armed forces...

Athens, Sep 17 (DPA) When devastating forest fires struck Greece last month, thousands of angry citizens took to the streets nationwide to protest the government's slow response to the disaster. On Sunday, Greeks appeared to have forgiven the conservative government by voting them in for a second four-year term, giving the green light to move ahead with key economic, pension and educational reforms.

Baghdad : Iraq has asked Saudi Arabia to replace its ambassador in Baghdad, stressing that his presence would hamper the development of bilateral ties,...

By IANS,

By Xinhua, Tokyo : Japan posted a 324 billion-yen ($3.06 billion) trade deficit in August due to rising imports for the first time in 26 years, the finance ministry said Thursday. The deficit is mainly due to a lacklustre global economic performance and soaring prices of crude oil. Exports increased 0.3 percent to 7,055.9 billion yen for the second consecutive month of rise, while imports grew 17.3 percent to 7,379.9 billion yen, up for the 11th straight month, according to the ministry. Crude oil imports increased 64.3 percent and those of coal surged 121.2 percent.

By IANS/EFE,

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Tokyo : More earthquakes measuring over 7.0 on the Richter scale could occur in and around Japan within a month, authorities said Friday.

By IANS, Brasilia : Brazil will test food imported from Japan for radiation contamination, a media report said.

By IANS,

By IRNA, Moscow : The Georgian government broke off diplomatic relations with Russia on Friday, and Russia responded by doing the same. It marks the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that Russia had severed formal diplomatic ties with one of the 14 other autonomous republics that became independent states in 1991. It was also a sign of ripples still being felt in post-Soviet politics after the war earlier this month over the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

By IANS, London : The British government plans to send reports of school weight checks of children to their parents in a move to check the growing problem of obesity. Parents will be told if their child is underweight, healthy or overweight as part of the fat-busting initiative. Ministers claim the move is necessary because too many parents of obese children do not realise there is a problem, the Manchester Evening News reported. But experts warn the new measure might prove confusing unless the results are accompanied by clear advice.

Kabul : The Islamic State terrorist group has asked people in parts of eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan to refer their problems to their...

By DPA, New York : Police evacuated part of Times Square after finding a suspected car bomb in the busy midtown Manhattan district Saturday night, media reports said. Officials said it was not considered to be a terrorist threat, and New York City police reportedly asked federal authorities to stand down. The New York Times quoted an explosives' expert saying it was an improvised device using propane cylinders and powder, but the ignition source "failed to function the main charge".

By Xinhua, Beijing : A three-day conference of China's disabled persons kicked off Tuesday to discuss a five-year action plan for their betterment. According to the agenda of the China Disabled Persons Federation (CDPF), 630 delegates representing the country's 83 million disabled, will hear and discuss a work report by the CDPF. On behalf of the central leadership, vice premier Li Keqiang, addressing the opening ceremony, said the government has made significant progress in working with the disabled over the past 30 years.

By IANS, Los Angeles: Footballer David Beckham was pulled by a female fan in the crowd so that she could hug him.

By RIA Novosti Tokyo : South Korea has confirmed that it will develop bilateral relations with North Korea, regardless of how Pyongyang honours its denuclearisation commitments following six-nation talks in February, the unification minister said Friday. "I believe we cannot give up on South-North relations under any circumstances and that we must never stop trying to find alternative solutions" to any difficulties, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Lee Jae-joung as saying.

By DPA, Washington : North Korea will soon provide an account of all of its nuclear work as part of a six-nation disarmament agreement with the secretive country, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said. "North Korea will soon give its declaration of nuclear programmes to China," Rice said Wednesday, and added that the US would respond the declaration by taking steps to remove the communist country from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism and towards ending sanctions.

By DPA London : The only woman arrested in connection with last month's attempted bombings in London and Glasgow has been released without charges, Scotland Yard said Thursday night. Marwa Asha was arrested nearly two weeks ago on a highway along with her husband Mohammed Asha, shortly after two people attempted to drive a burning Jeep into Glasgow airport and two bombs were discovered in cars in London. Police arrested eight people after the attacks in Britain and Australia, all of them doctors or working in the medical field. Asha, 27, was a laboratory assistant in England.

Jerusalem: The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) boosted its troops along the Gaza border, as the three-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is set to...

By IANS, Kathmandu : Nepal's health authorities Sunday calmed down fears that the bird flu virus had infected humans in the Himalayan republic after the official media said a man had been admitted to hospital with suspected bird flu infection. Balbhadra Das, director at the B.P. Koirala Institute for Health Sciences (BPKIHS), told IANS that the report by Nepal's national news agency Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS) was wrong.

By DPA, Johannesburg : A Chinese ship that was carrying arms for Zimbabwe hurriedly left Durban harbour in South Africa after a local court ordered that its cargo could not be transported overland across South Africa, reports said. The An Yue Jiang lifted anchor after the Durban High Court Friday ruled that its shipment of weapons and ammunition could be offloaded but could not be transported across South Africa to Zimbabwe, SAPA news agency reported.

By RIA Novosti, Kiev : Ukraine's WBC heavyweight boxing champion, Vitali Klitschko, has announced he will take part in the country's snap parliamentary elections, the Ukrainian business daily Delo reported Tuesday. "We are carrying out negotiations to form a bloc and will decide with whom to make the bloc. This may be the Klitschko Bloc or other political forces," Dmitry Andriyevsky, a city council member from Our Ukraine, told the newspaper.

By SPA, Taipei : Typhoon Kalmaegi has left at least 15 dead, 10 missing and eight injured in Taiwan, a government report said Saturday. The typhoon has also created 310 million Taiwan dollars (10.2 million US dollars) in agricultural damage, the National Disasters Prevention and Protection Commission said in a report on its website. At least five low-lying areas in central and southern Taiwan were still inundated by floods brought by torrential rains caused by the typhoon, the Commission was quoted as saying by DPA.

United Nations : Various UN agencies have appealed for humanitarian relief and reconstruction in the next stage of Nepal recovery after a major quake...

By DPA, Washington : US car maker Chrysler confirmed Saturday that it had received an initial infusion of $4 billion from the US government. In statement from its corporate headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, Chrysler head Robert Nardelli said the funds would "allow the company to continue an orderly restructuring, while pursuing our vision to build the fuel-efficient, high-quality cars and trucks people want to buy".

Abuja: Two female suicide bombers detonated their improvised explosive devices at a phone market in Nigeria's northwestern Kano state on Wednesday, killing at least...

Gaza : At least three Palestinians were killed and 20 others injured in an explosion in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a security official...

By IRNA, Berlin : Girls attending school in the eastern German state of Saxony are allowed to wear a headscarf because of religious reasons, press reports said Thursday.

By DPA, Kiev : Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko Monday announced a one-week delay in early elections, citing a need to give the present government to deal with a financial crisis. The nationwide vote for a new parliament will take place Dec 14, rather than Dec 7 as ordered earlier this month, Yushchenko said in a meeting with reporters.

By IANS, London : Loss-making London newspaper the Evening Standard has been sold to Russian oligarch and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev for a "nominal sum", its current owners announced Wednesday. The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) said London's traditional eveninger has been bought by Evening Press, a company formed by Lebedev and his son Evgeny Lebedev and owned by Lebedev Holdings. DMGT's Associated Newspapers division is to retain a minority share of 24.9 percent in the new firm, called Evening Standard Ltd.

By Xinhua Quito : Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has proposed to free the country's Galapagos Islands from polluting fuels by 2015 and boost wind power generation capacity. Ecuador has launched the wind farm project a few months ago with three 800 KW turbines, whose power would allow San Cristobal, the archipelago's second most populous island with 6,100 residents, to halve its use of diesel power. The Galapagos Islands are home to 19,000 people and a host of unique species. It also has the country's largest wind farm.

By IRNA London : Marriage rates in England and Wales have fallen to the lowest level since records began back in 1862, according to new figures released Wednesday. The Office for National Statistics reported that provisional marriage figures for 2006 show that 23 out of 1,000 unmarried men were choosing to marry, down from 25 per 1,000 the previous year. The marriage rate for women also fell from 22 to 21 per thousand. The popularity of marriages has been in steep decline falling from rates of over 50 per 1,000 for men and 40 per 1,000 for women in the past 25 years.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : Fifty-year-old Apa Sherpa, who has become almost as legendary as the mountain that has been his permanent pursuit, is aiming to break his own incredible record by summiting Mt Everest, the highest peak in the world, for the 20th time this summer. The soft-spoken modest "Super Sherpa" who comes from Thame village in northern Nepal, the home of another legendary Everest climber Tenzing Norgay, will seek to conquer Mt Everest as part of the Eco Everest 2010 expedition that targets to clean the mountain of garbage left behind by earlier climbers.

By IANS, Panaji: A relative of Russian teenager Elena Sukhonova, whose badly mangled remains were found along a railway track in May this year, has alleged that her body has decomposed beyond recognition in the mortuary. Advocate Vikram Varma, speaking on behalf of Dmitiry Voronov -- Elena's brother-in-law -- has said that the malfunctioning mortuary at the Goa Medical college where the body was stored had resulted in the extreme state of decomposition.

Beijing : At least 37 people were killed and six others were missing after rainstorms hit China, officials said Monday. Twenty-two people were reported killed...

By IANS, Chennai : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said Friday night that India could certainly intervene in Sri Lanka to alleviate the sufferings of Tamil minorities there, in the same way it did in then East Pakistan in 1971. "Did India not intervene in Bangladesh when needed?", the DMK chief told reporters when asked how India could intervene in the affairs of a foreign nation. He was referring to the 1971 India-Pakistan war that led to the creation of a separate nation of Bangladesh.

By IINA,

By DPA, Nairobi : Three shots from US Navy snipers, and the drama was over. Three Somali pirates lay dead and Richard Phillips, the American captain held hostage on a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean since Wednesday, was free. Crew members on the Maersk Alabama, the ship the pirates tried to seize only to end up with the consolation prize of its captain, celebrated as news emerged Sunday night that Phillips had been rescued.

By KUNA Paris : French and eligible European Union resident voters began heading to the polls early Sunday for the second round of local elections here designed to complete the process of choosing local councillors for cities, towns and villages throughout the country. In a first round of voting a week ago, Frances Socialist opposition and its left-wing and centrist allies made significant ground on the ruling Union for a Presidential Majority (UMP) of President Nicolas Sarkozy, but a number of key votes remained undecided.

By IRNA, Moscow : Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that promoting relations with the Islamic world was one of the priorities of Russian foreign policy. In his greeting message to participants in an international conference dubbed as 'Russia-Islamic World', opened in Moscow on Monday, Lavrov said, "Over centuries our country existed as a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional society. Fundamental particularities of the present-day world are its cultural civilized diversity."