SYDNEY: Australia`s Defence Minister John Faulkner on Wednesday said he would quit the cabinet after coming elections, but denied his decision was prompted by last month`s abrupt change of prime minister.Faulkner, a Labor Party heavyweight and a known ally of ousted leader Kevin Rudd,

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hoped for direct Middle East peace talks to start before the end of September, as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports of a rift.The leaders sat close together in the Oval Office and staged a prolonged

MUMBAI: India`s billionaire Ambani brothers are signing deals and drawing up expansion plans after calling a halt to their very public five-year battle over the spoils of their father`s vast business empire. The warring siblings, Mukesh, 53, and Anil, 51, buried the hatchet in May on a

NEW YORK: Britain`s Queen Elizabeth II pleaded for world peace Tuesday in her first visit in five decades to UN headquarters during a whirlwind tour of a sweltering New York.The 84-year-old monarch, who was last in the Big Apple in 1976 and at the UN in 1957, wore a two piece white

LONDON: Princess Diana`s family on Tuesday sold an important Old Master painting by Peter Paul Rubens for nine million pounds (13.6 million dollars, 10.8 million euros) at auction."A Commander Being Armed For Battle", which is thought to depict the 16th-century Holy Roman Emperor, Charles

SEOUL: About 10 North Koreans are believed to have been killed in a traffic accident at a South Korean-funded joint industrial estate just north of the border, a report said Wednesday.The accident happened last Friday evening when a bus carrying homebound North Korean workers at Kaesong

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu`s brief visit to Washington seems to have left him with everything he could have wanted from US President Barack Obama, and then some.In 80 minutes of one-on-one talks in the White House on Tuesday, Netanyahu won praise for his recent

WELLINGTON: The undersea world isn`t as quiet as we thought, according to a New Zealand researcher who found fish can "talk" to each other.Fish communicate with noises including grunts, chirps and pops, University of Auckland marine scientist Shahriman Ghazali has discovered according to

WASHINGTON: Around 32,000 lives could be saved each year if people over 50 got regular colorectal cancer screening as recommended, the US Centers for Disease Control said Tuesday.The disease is the second leading cause of deaths in the United States after lung cancer, but millions of

DIYARBAKIR: Kurdish rebels killed three Turkish soldiers and 10 of their own militants died in an attack on a military outpost in southeastern Turkey, officials said Tuesday.The attack was the latest in a surge of violence by Kurdish rebels, prompting Turkey`s army chief to highlight the

BANGKOK:  Thailand on Tuesday extended by three months a state of emergency across about one quarter of the country, including Bangkok, due to lingering fears of unrest following deadly protests.The move comes despite warnings from human rights campaigners that the authorities` use of

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka on Tuesday shrugged off a European Union decision to withdraw tariff concessions over the island`s failure to guarantee an improvement in its human rights record.Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said Colombo had already arranged relief to export businesses that would

KABUL: Afghanistan`s national security adviser has called on the Pakistani government to "take serious measures" against Islamist groups launching attacks on Afghan targets from secure havens inside Pakistan.Rangin Dadfar Spanta said Afghanistan had "tremendous evidence" that Pakistani

MOGADISHU: At least 16 people were killed in fighting between rival factions in Mogadishu as chaos engulfed the Somali capital and spurred the war-torn country`s neighbours into action, officials said Tuesday.Most of the latest victims were combatants killed in several incidents on

SRINAGAR: A young man was killed Tuesday when security forces opened fire at stone-throwing protesters in Indian Kashmir, police said, the latest in a series of deaths that have stoked public anger.Indian police and paramilitary forces struggling to control protests in the Muslim-majority

BUCHAREST - An ageing Romanian military aircraft carrying paratroopers on a training mission crashed minutes after take-off, killing 11 people and injuring another three, local authorities said. Three paratroops managed to jump to safety from the ageing Soviet-designed biplane before

PARIS - Air France will cut its workforce by some 4,100 people by March 2013 through voluntary departures, union sources said on Monday.Jose Rocamorra, of the CGT union, said there was no plan for lay-offs but over the next three years the airline, Europe`s biggest with partner KLM, will

OTTAWA - An explosion at a Toronto power facility on Monday plunged Canada`s largest metropolis into darkness, and disrupted a state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II, local media reported.BDST: 08.29 HRS, July 6, 2010

SYDNEY - Australia`s new Prime Minister Julia Gillard Tuesday ended a three-month freeze on processing Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, and said a bar on Afghan claims was under review."The government has decided to lift immediately the suspension on processing claims of Sri Lankans," Gillard

JERUSALEM - Israel would be the big loser in case of a break in relations with former strategic ally Turkey because of its refusal to apologise to Ankara for a deadly naval raid, analysts warn. "In this tug of war, Israel has more to lose than Turkey," said Ofra Bengio, an Israeli