Australia's Qantas Airways will start putting the A380s back into service that it grounded after a November 4 engine explosion, dpa reported; Kazinform refers to Trend.

"We're completely comfortable with the operation of the aircraft," chief executive Alan Joyce said Tuesday.



Qantas will have four of its six superjumbos operating by Christmas, with the first service to resume on Saturday from Sydney to London via Singapore.



The A380s would be ope

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More than 6.5 tons of drugs and more than 40 tons of precursors have been seized on the territory of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states in a joint operation staged from November 16 through 22, head of Russia's anti-drug authority Viktor Ivanov said on Monday; Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.



The operation, referred to as the Channel-2010, involved some 100,000 anti-drug police officers and other law enforcers from the CSTO member states. "A tota

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Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has said he will call a general election in the new year following a day of political turmoil over an EU-led bail-out of the country's ailing economy; Kazinform refers to BBC News.



He rejected opposition calls for a snap election, saying the country's crucial budget had to be passed first.



Earlier, the Green Party - junior partners in the governing coalition - called for a January election.



The government has accept

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The 9th meeting of the Coordinating Council of heads of the competent bodies on countering illegal drug trafficking of the Collective Security Treaty Organization member countries will be held today in Moscow.



The press service of the Organization informed that the representatives of the Eurasian Group on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism as well as the representatives of the Council of Heads of the CIS Customs Services, Council of CIS Border Troops Commande

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Russia's largest car maker AvtoVAZ will issue shares worth 17.5 billion rubles and sell them to its current shareholders Renault, the country's state-owned hi-tech conglomerate Russian Technologies )Rostekhnologii) and Troika Dialog investment company at 40.24 rubles per share ($1.32), AvtoVAZ said on Monday. Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.

Troika Dialog, the Renault-Nissan alliance and Russian Technologies each hold 25 percent of AvtoVAZ



Nissan said on November 19 it w

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The U.S. President Barack Obama administration hopes to ratify the new START treaty before the end of this year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said; Kazinform refers to ITAR-TASS.

She said they continued cooperation with the Senate Democrats and Republicans for holding the vote this year. No doubt, this will meet the interests of the United States, Clinton said.



She also said she was touched and a little bit surprised with the large number of delegates to the N

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An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter Scale hit Taiwan's Hualien at 8:31 pm Beijing Time Sunday, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center; Kazinform refers to China Daily.



The epicenter was monitored at 23.9 degrees north latitude and 121.6 degrees east longitude with a depth of about 10 kilometers, the center said.



Taiwan's weather bureau said earlier it was a 6.1-magnitude quake and its epicenter is about 40.7 kilometers deep.



The U

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Prince William and girlfriend Kate Middleton have been sent congratulations from around the world after announcing their engagement.

On Tuesday, the couple, both 28, revealed they would marry next spring or summer after the prince proposed while on holiday in Kenya in October.

The prince gave her his mother Diana's engagement ring - which he said he had carried in a rucksack for three weeks.

Prince Harry said he was delighted and that it was like gaining a sister.

The...

The spreading of Haitian cholera outbreak to the neighboring Dominican Republic, a popular tourist destination among Russians, is only a matter of time, Russia's chief sanitary official said.

"Taking into consideration that border markets are thriving on the frontier between the two states, and that many thousands of Haitians work in the Dominican Republic, I think that the spreading of the disease is imminent," Gennady Onishchenko told RIA Novosti.

The Dominican Republic...

An undersea earthquake with magnitude of 6.4 strikes off Maluku island in eastern parts of Indonesia early Wednesday morning, but there was no report of damage or casualty, officials said here.

The Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency reported the quake struck at 3:06 a.m. Jakarta time Wednesday (0806 GMT Tuesday) with epicenter at 210 km southwest Tual town of Maluku and with the depth at 128 km under sea bed.

"The shakes of the quake were not felt because it was loca...

The CIS Executive Committee expects that the CIS Free Trade Zone Treaty will be signed in the first half of 2011, the press service of the Committee cites Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee - CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Garkun.

The currently functioning document was adopted in 1994. Over 20 amendments have been introduced in it since that time. Due to accession of new states, intention of several CIS states to join the WTO and establishment of the Customs Union the necessity ...

China has been confirmed as the creator of the world's fastest super computer. The Tianhe-1A is capable of 2.67 quadrillions of computing operations per second, pulling ahead of the United States in the global supercomputing race.

The lead of the China-made system was confirmed by the 36th edition of TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, which was released hours ago on the TOP500 list website.

Tianhe-1A was followed by the former No. 1 system, the U.S.-made Cray ...

Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola has received a lifetime achievement Oscar, during a Los Angeles ceremony.

The cream of Hollywood actors turned out for the event to see the filmmaker get the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award.

Robert DeNiro paid tribute to Coppola, calling him "an inspiration and one of my biggest influences".

As he accepted the prize, Coppola said: "I have a great love of the original Hollywood tradition and admiration for the tradition of...

The leaders of China and the United States struck a positive note as they met in Seoul on Thursday just hours ahead of the G20 Summit opening; Kazinform refers to China Daily.

Experts believe their relationship will provide a boost for the summit that will have to deal with a number of disagreements among its members.

President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama held an 80-minute talk in the Republic of Korea capital just hours before the opening reception banquet.

The ...

At least 30 people were killed and 150 others injured in a powerful blast that went off Thursday night in the downtown area of Karachi, the largest industrial city in southern Pakistan, sources in Karachi told Xinhua.

According to sources, a building targeted by the blast was leveled to ground and many others were buried under the debris. The number of the people trapped in the collapsed building is estimated at 40.

Initial reports said that the blast took place at a building of th...

After marathon meetings, Prime Minister Netanyahu describes them as progress, not a breakthrough.

After more than six hours of talks with American officials yesterday, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's entourage said that progress had been made on efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but stopped short of saying there had been a breakthrough.

The main issue discussed yesterday was the package of incentives the United States will offer Israel if it exten...

The death toll in Haiti's cholera epidemic climbed on Thursday to 800, according to an American medical expert, but U.S. health authorities said the risk of widespread transmission to the United States was low, given good sanitation there.

Fatalities from the diarrheal disease have risen steadily since the start of the outbreak more than three weeks ago in the poor Caribbean nation, which is struggling to recover from the effects of a devastating January 12 earthquake.

Ezra Barzila...

The head of Russia's deep cover U.S. spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said on Thursday, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War.

Members of a Russian spy ring are seen in this courtroom sketch during their appearance in Manhattan Federal Court in New York, July 8, 2010. (REUTERS/Christine Cornell/Files)

The newspaper, Kommersant, identified the man as Colonel Shcherbakov and said he was ...

Tens of thousands of British university students staged a demonstration on Wednesday to protest a planned rise in university tuition fees.

Students and lecturers came from across Britain, some of whom smashed windows at Millbank Tower during their march in central London.

The British government confirmed last week that university undergraduate students will be charged tuition fees of up to 9,000 pounds (14,400 U.S. dollars) a year from 2012 from the current 3,290 pounds (5,265 U.S....

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday urged the governments of the G20 countries to promote small businesses.

"Today it is necessary not to try to restore the previous conditions for operation of small and midsized enterprises, but to form a more favorable environment for them," Medvedev said at a business summit in Seoul.

The business summit is held ahead of the meeting of G20 leaders, due Thursday evening in the South Korean capital.

"One of the key ...

U.S. President Barack Obama has renewed the 1979 financial sanctions against Iran, the White House reported.

"Because our relations with Iran have not yet returned to normal, and the process of implementing the January 19, 1981, agreements with Iran is still underway, the national emergency declared on November 14, 1979, must continue in effect beyond November 14, 2010," Obama said in a notice to Congress on Wednesday.

The decision is technical, as the U.S. president ext...

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama met in Seoul Thursday to exchange views on Sino-U.S. relations and other major world and regional issues of common concern.

Hu and Obama are meeting on the sidelines of the fifth Group of 20 (G20) summit, at which the participants will mainly discuss how to deal with challenges to the ongoing global economic recovery from a world financial crisis and pave the way for future sustainable and balanced growth.

This is th...

CSTO interior ministers of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member countries will elaborate mechanisms of a joint response to crises similar with inter-ethnic clashes that occurred in Kyrgyzstan this year, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said after a meeting with colleagues on Tuesday.

The CSTO Secretariat and the interior ministries of Russia and Kyrgyzstan made reports on stabilization in Kyrgyzstan and crisis management mechanisms.

"The ministers a...

Russia has introduced to the UN a draft resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism and the desecration of World War II monuments.

The UN General Assembly committee on social and humanitarian issues will vote on the document at the beginning of next week. The UN General Assembly, which usually supports the decision of the committee, will look at the resolution in mid-December.

The resolution condemns the construction of memorials in honor of former Nazis and Waffen-SS soldier...

US President Barack Obama showed off some of his Indonesian-language skills during his 19-hour visit to the country he lived in as a child, drawing laughter and cheers from the locals, Kazinform refers to Trend News.

Opening his speech at the University of Indonesia on Wednesday, Obama said: "Assalamulaikum. Salam sejahtera" (Peace be upon you. Happy prosperity), to applause from the academic audience.

He sparked a chorus of laughter when he said: "Pulang kampung, ni...

President Nicolas Sarkozy could reshuffle his cabinet as early as next week, government sources said on Tuesday, as he seeks to move on from an unpopular pension reform and look ahead to a 2012 election; Kazinform refers to China Daily.

Sources say he will retain Francois Fillon, a capable ally who appeals to his core conservative electorate, as prime minister, and could bring in Alain Juppe, a former prime minister and heavyweight of the ruling centre-right UMP party.

Sarkozy is s...

The death toll of the cholera epidemic in Haiti on Monday rose to 544 and some 8,000 people infected had been hospitalized, the Haitian Health Ministry said. According to information reaching here from Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, the Haitian Health Ministry said that daily average of deaths increased to 32 deaths each 24 hours, since the epidemic started on Oct. 20. Meanwhile, the hurricane Tomas worsened the sanitary situation, as about 2,000 had to be evacuated. The Health Ministry said t...

Visiting U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama is scheduled to visit Jakarta's landmark mosque of Istiqlal and the country's prominent university, police information center said on Tuesday, Kazinform refers to Xinhua.

President Obama is scheduled to visit the mosque on Wednesday morning after spending the night in the city's lavish hotel.

He was also scheduled to visit University of Indonesia (UI) campus located in Depok, West Java at Wednesday noon after his visit to the Muslim's wo...

Gold futures on the COMEX Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday extended rally and managed to stand above psychological mark 1,400 U.S. dollars, settling at all-time high 1403.2 dollars amid bullish sentiment. Silver also gained 68.4 cents.

The most active gold contract for December delivery jumped 5.5 dollars, or 0.4 percent, to finish at a record high settlement of 1,403.2 dollars per ounce.

The hike in the gold price seems far from stop in the wake of Fed's announc...

At least eight people died and 35 were injured in a bus crash in southern Albania late on Monday, the Athens News Agency (ANA) reported; Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.

The bus, owned by a Greek long-distance bus company, fell off a 120-meter (394-foot) cliff after the driver reportedly lost control of the vehicle on a wet road.

Most of the 49 passengers were Albanian citizens, ANA said.

Greek authorities offered Albania help in a rescue operation, and said the injured c

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