Evening Edition

The move came as some 100 independent figures met in the capital to discuss a “third way” for Syria, which has been rocked by deadly anti-regime protests for three months.

Troops backed by 97 tanks and personnel carriers advanced late Saturday on Kfar Rumma village and made arrests in the district of Jabal al-Zawiyah, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Swiss group Addax & Oryx announced on June 17 that it had signed a 258 million euro ($368 million) deal with seven European and African development banks to finance the bioenergy project near Makeni in the north of the country.

The hot and rainy west African nation, recovering from a brutal civil war which ended in 2002, has the ideal climate to grow sugarcane, much like that of ethanol powerhouse Brazil which has led the way in using the crop for biofuel.

China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s production of 17 rare-earth elements, which are essential for electric cars, flat-screen TVs, iPods, superconducting magnets, lasers, missiles, night-vision goggles, wind turbines and many other advanced products.

These elements carry exotic names such as neodymium, promethium and yttrium but in spite of their “rare-earth” tag are in fact abundant in the planet’s crust.

The liftoff is scheduled for July 8 at 11:26 am (1526 GMT) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s Cape Canaveral, sending Atlantis on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station.

Four American astronauts will ride the shuttle on its last tour of duty to stock the orbiting research outpost with plenty of supplies — 8,000 pounds (3,600 kilograms) worth in all — and bring back a failed ammonia pump, NASA said.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva conceded defeat and congratulated the opposition led by Thaksin’s youngest sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who is now set to become Thailand first female premier.

With almost all the votes counted, Puea Thai had won a clear majority with 263 seats out of 500, well ahead of Abhisit’s Democrats with 161, according to the Election Commission, which estimated turnout at 74 percent.

Withdrawal at the rate Obama has planned on — including the removal of 33,000 surge troops by the end of next summer — “is an unnecessary risk and that is why there was no military leader who recommended it”, Republican Senator John McCain said during a visit to Kabul.

Joined by fellow Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman in the Afghan capital, the trio spoke to media after visiting US troops.

The protesters, responding to calls on a social networking site, sought to show their dissatisfaction with Lukashenko by continuously clapping their hands but police arrested anyone who joined in the applause, young or old.

Dozens of people, including photo journalists, were led away into waiting vans from the Independence Day protest while police subdued some demonstrators by kicking or punching them, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.

A day after losing 1min 14sec to Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck and 1:17 to Australian Cadel Evans when he got caught up in a crash 9km from the stage finish, Contador dropped more time on the 23 km team time trial.

Norwegian Thor Hushovd took possession of the yellow jersey from Philippe Gilbert of Belgium when his Garmin-Cervelo team dominated the race against the clock in a time of 24min 48sec.

“There are some voices in Khartoum that are against this framework agreement (signed on Tuesday). Those voices are playing with fire,” the SPLM north’s secretary general Yasser Arman told AFP.

“The only alternative to this agreement is a war, from Blue Nile to Darfur. We don’t want that,” he added.

The 46-year-old entrepreneur, who agreed to step into the role in January after predecessor Edgar Grospiron stepped down in December, was speaking just three days away from the vote by the International Olympic Committee.

Long-time favourites, South Korea’s Pyeongchang, have largely been seen to be bankrolled by Samsung and they have also played a lot on bringing the Games to Asia for only the third time.

Protests — which are not common in authoritarian Vietnam — have taken place in the capital Hanoi for five weekends in a row over the maritime dispute.

Plainclothes and uniformed security agents poured into the area around the Chinese embassy and sealed off surrounding roads, but about 40 protesters penetrated the cordon to gather some distance from the embassy. They marched towards central Hanoi, trailed by riot police and other security personnel.

Greece will be able to pay its bills this month after eurozone finance ministers cleared the way late Saturday for the next 12-billion-euro tranche of a 110-billion-euro ($160 billion) bailout granted last year by the EU and IMF.

But the ministers still need to work on a second rescue package potentially of similar size to ensure Athens can stay afloat until at least 2014, warding off a devastating default that would reverberate across Europe.

Power cuts sometimes lasting more than 12 hours a day have forced factory owners in the country’s cloth capital Faisalabad to switch off the lights and sell their looms for scrap, leaving tens of thousands of workers jobless.

The country is the world’s fourth-largest producer of cloth and the industry accounts for 60 percent of export revenue according to official data. But the shortages are heaping pressure on Pakistan’s crippled and debt-ridden economy.

The French executive is expected to land in Washington on Monday, the Independence Day holiday for the United States. She will officially begin work on Tuesday morning and hold a press conference Wednesday.

A “busy work agenda awaits,” declared the IMF in its internal online magazine, while it stressed one of Lagarde’s most pressing items includes the “difficult policy choices needed to help global recovery (and) address the euro area crisis.”

The move would take the number of British troops in Afghanistan below the key figure of 9,000 and mark a major step towards Cameron’s stated aim of having all British combat forces out of the country by 2015.

Cameron would announce on Wednesday plans to withdraw up to 800 troops by the end of next year, the Sunday Times reported. The Sunday Telegraph put the figure at 500 and said they would leave in mid-2012.

The rebels’ announcement late on Saturday came as a prolonged deadlock on the battlefield prompted mounting pressure from countries outside the NATO-led coalition for a negotiated solution to a conflict that has dragged on for four and a half months.

South Africa, which has taken a lead role in mediation efforts, said that President Jacob Zuma would hold talks in Moscow on Sunday with representatives of the International Contact Group on Libya as well as Russian officials.

The OPLC board voted 14-0 in February to make the Hammers the first choice to move into the £486 million ($776 million) Olympic Stadium once the London Games are over, edging out Tottenham Hotspur.

The future of the 80,000-seater venue in Stratford, east London, has been a bone of contention, trying to match the Games organisers’ pledge for an athletics legacy with the need to make the stadium viable in the long term.

Greece is expected to receive 12 billion euros from the eurozone and IMF by July 15 after the ministers approved the fifth tranche of aid from last year’s 110-billion-euro ($160 billion) financial rescue package.

The IMF is due to clear its slice of the next installment, 3.3 billion euros, next week. The eurozone’s share amounts to 8.7 billion euros.

Argentine neurologist-turned-chef Miguel Sanchez Romera, however, has another proposition: restaurant fare which, with originality and purity, awakens and excites the brain.

When he opens his high-concept “Romera” restaurant next month in New York’s edgy meatpacking district, the Michelin-ranked chef will be serving up what he calls “neurogastronomy” meant to deliver complete sensory experience on a plate.

Ortego, who battles insurgents in the violent eastern province of Khost with Bravo Company, 1-26 Infantry, recently attended a naturalisation ceremony at a US base near Kabul ahead of this year’s Independence Day celebrations.

Like thousands of fellow Filipinos, he sees the US military as a fast-track to American citizenship, securing his own future and also helping his family back home.

In only three years since it started, the Mad Apple firm in Novy Saldorf, a village in a wine-making region about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Prague, is set to increase output a hundredfold, has won an industry medal and launched into the export market.

Its young owner, 29-year-old Vaclav Beran, started the business with his sister and a friend after a trip to England where apple cider has a devoted following.

University Avenue, in the hill-ringed city of Nablus, is lined with white banners with the names of Samaritan priests, renowned among their Palestinian neighbours for astrology and divination.

Palestinians go to the Samaritans’ booths along the avenue or to their homes on nearby Mount Gerizim hoping to find answers to their most pressing problems.

The Indonesian capital ranked last of all in a global survey of commuter satisfaction in 23 cities published last month by business research firm Frost & Sullivan.

The Journey of Experience Index poll of almost 15,000 people around the world found that travellers in Jakarta were the most miserable of all, gloomier even than those in Rio de Janeiro and Cairo — notorious for its dire gridlock.

“We saved the country from going bankrupt,” Haarde, 68, told AFP in an interview this week, claiming that if he and his government had acted differently when all the major banks failed in October 2008, the economy could have fallen off a cliff.

“That is evident if you look at our situation now and you compare it to Ireland or not to mention Greece,” he said, adding that the two debt-wracked EU countries “made mistakes that we did not make … We did not guarantee the external debts of the banking system.”

Mohammed told AFP why he is certain 30-year-old’s Ahmed’s fate was sealed while green flags were waving on the other side of the capital and as Kadhafi dished out threats against Europe, NATO and Libyan “traitors” on Friday.

Ahmed’s execution, he said, was punishment for his family’s refusal to take part in the rally, a vital show of strength by the Libyan leader amid a five-month-long uprising that has pushed the regime to the brink of collapse.