Taipei/Beijing, Aug 31 (DPA) :Taiwan and China launched regular direct flights Monday, ending Taipei’s six-decade ban on air links with the mainland imposed at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Taiwan and Chinese airlines will operate a total of 270 round-trip flights per week, up from the current 108 charter flights. Chinese [...]

Geneva : (DPA) The US tax agency Monday filed with Swiss authorities for administrative assistance on information related to 4,500 bank accounts, following a deal reached between the two governments earlier this month. The out-of-court settlement required that the country’s largest bank UBS AG hand over to US authorities information on accounts that are believed [...]

New York : (DPA) Indigenous people of the Chaco regions in both Bolivia and Paraguay suffer forced labour, severe poverty and human rights abuses, a United Nations panel on indigenous issues said in a report released Monday. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said, following visits to the regions in April and May, that [...]

Lima: (EFE) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that Caracas will continue exporting oil to the United States because it is in the interest of his country. Chavez said in a statement published in the Lima daily El Comercio that “many people don’t know” that Venezuelan state oil giant PDVSA, through its Citgo subsidiary, has seven [...]

New York: (DPA) A massive steel column from the original World Trade Centre destroyed by terrorist attacks Sep 11, 2001, was returned to its original site Monday to be a part of the memorial monument for victims. The 58-tonne, 12-metre-high beam plunged deep into “Ground Zero”, the site of the World Trade Centre’s twins towers [...]

Los Angeles : Los Angeles coroners found lethal levels of the anaesthetic propofol in the body of Michael Jackson after his death, the Los Angeles Times reported on its website Monday. The report cited a search warrant for the premises of Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray, which was unsealed Monday in Houston, Texas. The search warrant [...]

Dubai : The value of mortgages issued in Dubai in the second quarter of 2009 reached $2.17 billion, WAM news agency reported, quoting real estate online information company Reidin.com. “With more banks offering competitive lending ratios especially during this economic downturn, it is no surprise that Dubai’s mortgage market has amounted to such staggering value [...]

Istanbul : Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived here Monday to attend the ministerial meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP), the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.   Pakistani Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit said Monday that Pakistan is trying to engage the private sector of FoDP countries to participate more in [...]

Washington :US Attorney General Eric Holder Monday appointed a special prosecutor to re-examine nearly a dozen cases of CIA interrogators who allegedly abused terrorism detainees in the aftermath of the Sep 11, 2001, attacks. It was one of a flurry of decisions and reports issued throughout Monday relating to former President George W. Bush’s once-secret [...]

Caracas : Tensions between Caracas and Bogota are rising after Colombia signed a defence pact with Washington to set up US military bases in Colombia, officials said. Although the details of the agreement were not made public yet, a statement issued by the US embassy in Bogota said Monday it would enable the US soldiers [...]