Britain and France are c

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   alling for an additional 3,000 United Nations troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the U.N. already has its biggest peacekeeping mission, a senior British diplomat said Wednesday. A U.N. peacekeeper rides atop an armored vehicle last week in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Mark Malloch-Brown, the British Foreign Office minister for Africa, the Middle East and the United Nations, announced a draft resolution on the troop increase while on a four-day mission to the war-torn Congo. Britain expects the U.N. Security Council to adopt the resolution by the end of the week, a spokeswoman for the British mission to the United Nations said. Read the full story

A grenade apparently fired into a

gathering of anti-government protesters camped out in the Thai prime minister’s office compound killed one person and wounded 23 others Thursday, officials said. Security for anti-government protesters in Bangkok inspect grenade attack site on Thursday. Read the full story

Russia will send additional ships to the Horn of Africa in an effort to crack down on the recent wave of hijackings by Somalia-based pirates, its navy chief said Thursday.

“After Neustrashimy, Russia will be sending warships from other fleets to this region,” Vysotsky said. No additional details were provided.

A NATO-led international fleet has attempted to crack down on the attacks. An Indian frigate battled a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, leaving the ship ablaze and likely sunk, the country’s defense ministry reported.

In September, Vysotsky said Russian ships would be operating on their own. But the crews of the Neustrashimy and the British frigate HMS Cumberland teamed up to chase off pirates who attacked a Danish ship in the gulf earlier this month.

More than 90 ships have been attacked off eastern Africa so far this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau, which monitors piracy. The pirates, who operate from largely lawless Somalia, still hold 17 vessels — including the Saudi-owned supertanker Sirius Star, the largest ship captured to date.

The US Coast Guard has suspended its search for roughly 90 migrants feared dead after their makeshift boat apparently sank in an often-stormy stretch of water between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. For four days, rescue crews had used helicopters, a cutter and several aircraft to look for a sign of the wooden boat reported missing in the perilous 130-kilometre Mona Passage separating the Dominican Republic from this comparatively wealthy US territory. But Coast Guard Captain Eduardo Pino said the mission was suspended on Wednesday evening after rescuers found no debris or bodies in the white-capped waters where the Atlantic collides with the Caribbean Sea. Earlier reports put the number of passengers at 40, but Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad said the estimated number of people on the boat had risen to about 90 since the weekend. The illegal migrants apparently were all Dominicans, but authorities could not rule out that a few Cubans or Haitians might also have been on the boat, known as a “yola”.

Russia and Georgia started talks today to resolve tensions over breakaway regions that led to a war in August, and one senior official predicted negotiations could take years. “I expect a result in many, many years forward if we start today constructively,” said Maksim Grinjia, deputy foreign minister of the Moscow-backed breakaway region of Abkhazia. “It’s a long process. We have to start one day,” he told reporters. A first set of talks, brokered by the European Union and other international bodies, failed to get off the ground last month because of disagreements about whether representatives from South Ossetia and Abkhazia should take part, and how. Since the five-day war ended there have been shootings and explosions along the new de facto border of Georgia and South Ossetia with both blaming each other for stoking conflict. Russian defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov said yesterday that Georgia was trying to build up its military which could spark even greater instability in the region than in August.

Much diplomatic sleight-of-hand has been needed to get all the parties to sit around the same table, and most participants declined to comment as they entered United Nations headquarters in Europe for the meeting. Moscow insists that the governments of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that it backs are present, while Georgia is wary of anything that would amount to international recognition for the breakaway regions and insists that regional representatives still loyal to Tbilisi also take part in the talks. Grinjia said the talks would take place in working groups, rather than a formal plenary session, with officials taking part as representatives and not official delegations. The United States, which sees Georgia as an ally in the volatile Caucasus, is also participating. US President-elect Barack Obama called on Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Monday to assure him of Washington’s continued support. Mr Grinjia said the two working groups would discuss security guarantees and refugees. Human rights group Amnesty International estimates that 24,000 ethnic Georgians are unable to return to their homes in South Ossetia and nearby areas, as looting and kidnappings continue along the border. At the conflict’s height around 200,000 people were displaced on all sides, with ethnic Georgians accounting for the biggest group, Amnesty said in a report this week. The various parties met for an informal dinner yesterday. “It was a nice dinner and a good atmosphere,” Grinjia said. But no one expects the talks to have quick results.

A large fire broke out at the military section of Berlin’s Tegel airport on Thursday, prompting authorities to divert flights elsewhere.

Incoming flights were being diverted to Schoenefeld airport in the eastern part of the German capital because large plumes of smoke made landing difficult, a spokesman for Tegel airport said.

Police said the fire, whose cause was not known, posed no immediate danger to life and a large contingent of firemen was fighting it.

The crew of a supertank

er are reported safe after pirates hijacked the vessel laden with oil and then holed up in lawless Somalia. An undated photo of the Sirius Star in South Korean waters. Two more ships were attacked Tuesday off the East African coast and a third was seized Saturday but only reported Tuesday, according to a monitoring agency. Read the full story

– A crowd of up to 2,000 people

attacked a local Communist Party headquarters in northwestern China’s Gansu province early Tuesday, state-run media reported. Farmers grieve in front of their destroyed property in the aftermath of the May 2008 earthquake. Read the full story

In a contest between a toad and a crocodile, it seems obvious the croc will win. Not, though, if its adversary is a cane toad – the poisonous pests laying waste to Australian wildlife.

 

Researchers have found that, in some waterways in the Northern Territory, numbers of freshwater crocodiles have more than halved over the past two years. The reason is cane toads, which are fatal when eaten.

Professor Keith Christian, from Charles Darwin University, said: “A recent survey on the Victoria river showed that in a one-year period as many as 77 per cent of the crocodiles have died as a result of eating cane toads,” he said.

Professor Christian said second-year data also showed evidence of a high death rate, which had dire implications for the species – “particularly in these long-lived species that take a long time to mature before they are reproductive.” Since being introduced into Queensland in the 1930s, cane toads have spread across northern Australia.

Executives from the big three American car companies - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - will make a direct plea to Congress today for a multibillion-dollar lifeline, warning that bankruptcy and lay-offs of hundreds of thousands loom without government help.

 

The three companies burnt through more than $US14 billion ($22 billion) in cash in the third quarter and GM has warned it might run out of cash by the end of the year.

 

But despite the dire warnings, the auto bosses face a tough time convincing Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats to loosen the terms of the $US700 billion financial bail-out package or to find the funds from other quarters.

 

The house finance committee chairman, Barney Frank, and the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have been leading the charge for legislation to allow the car companies to access at least $US25 billion in funds from the $US700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed by Congress six weeks ago.

 

Over the weekend Mrs Pelosi unveiled the conditions that the Democrats would attach to the lifeline, including commitments by the car industry to restructure and make energy-efficient cars, in a bid to convince some conservative Democrats and Republicans that the money will force restructuring in the companies.

 

Mr Frank warned on Monday: “We would be inviting terrible disaster if we just stood by.”

 

But President George Bush reiterated his position that, while he is not against assistance for the car industry, he does not think the $US700 billion fund for financial institutions is the right pool of money.

 

He wants Congress to adapt the $US25 billion allocated by it to help the industry retool to meet tougher fuel-efficiency standards. That money is subject to a complex approval process and cannot be used for meeting wage bills.

 

His option is totally unacceptable to Democrats who want to drive their energy efficiency agenda with the funds, and this week’s vote on the issue - probably today - is almost certain to end in stalemate.

 

That means the issue will resurface after January 20 when Barack Obama’s swearing in as president caps the new power structure. The Democrats will have a much greater chance of passing a package then, but in the meantime the car makers will go perilously close to bankruptcy.

 

GM announced on Monday it was selling its remaining stake in Suzuki to raise $US230 million.

 

The problems of the US car industry are complex and long running. They include generous legacy pension and health insurance arrangements which impose costs that competitors do not have, poor management, multiple brands, a poor reputation for quality and an emphasis on building larger cars and four-wheel-drives at a time when the world is grappling with becoming more energy efficient.

 

Speaking on the 60 Minutes television program on Sunday, Mr Obama gave his first hint at what he might require, saying assistance should be conditional on a restructuring of the industry agreed to by labour, management, suppliers and lenders.

 

“We need to ask what does a sustainable US auto industry look like? So that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere.”

 

But there is a significant group of Republicans and some Democrats who believe the better course is to allow the US car makers to seek the normal protection of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and be restructured as part of that process.

 

Several Republican senators from southern states with factories owned by Asian and European car manufacturers oppose a bail-out of US car makers.