A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Left-of-centre coalition for Norway
OSLO - A left-of-centre coalition took power as Norway's first majority government in 20 years yesterday, promising to raise taxes, increase welfare spending and eradicate social inequality.
Record high oil prices and low interest rates have fuelled an economic boom in the world's third largest oil exporter, but last month Norwegians voted out a tax-cutting centre-right government in favour of the Labour-led "Red-Green" alliance.
New prime minister and leader of the Labour party Jens Stoltenberg (46) presented a 19-strong cabinet to King Harald which includes nine women. - (Reuters)
22 killed by rival tribe in India
ASSAM - At least 22 people, mainly Karbi tribals, were hacked to death and their dismembered bodies burned by a rival tribe yesterday in India's troubled northeastern state of Assam, police said.
They said more than 60 were wounded, many critically, in the attack in the south-central district of Karbi Anglong in the tea-and-oil rich state. - (Reuters)
Call for burial of Lenin's body
ST PETERSBURG - An influential Russian governor seen as being close to president Vladimir Putin yesterday called for Vladimir Lenin's body to be removed from its Red Square mausoleum and buried, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The statement by Valentina Matviyenko, governor of St Petersburg, was the latest indication the Kremlin could push for the burial of the Soviet founder whose mummified body has been on public display since his death in 1924. - (AP)
Somalian arrested over war crimes
STOCKHOLM - Swedish police have arrested a Somalian man who was visiting Sweden for an aid conference when exiled Somalians denounced him to police as a war criminal and provided a video tape as evidence, police said yesterday.
The man, identified only as a 57-year-old Somalian, was arrested in the southern university town of Lund late on Sunday and taken to the city of Gothenburg. - (Reuters)
Deputy PM to quit ahead of elections
PRAGUE - Czech deputy prime minister Martin Jahn said yesterday he would step down at the end of the year and quit politics, damaging the leftist Social Democrats' strategy ahead of a closely contested election next June. Mr Jahn, in charge of economic affairs in the cabinet, had been due to head the Social Democrats' candidates in the 2006 vote. - (Reuters)
Mugabe attacks Bush and Blair
ROME - Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe yesterday railed against US president George Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair, calling them "international terrorists" bent on world domination like Adolf Hitler. - (Reuters)
ETA asks France to join peace talks
MADRID - Armed Basque separatist group ETA has asked France to join any future peace talks between Spain and the guerrillas, Cambio 16 magazine reported yesterday. France, however, ruled out taking a role. - (Reuters)