In a significant move, the CPM formed an alliance with the All India Anna DMK (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu on Saturday for the coming Lok Sabha elections.

After two days of marathon deliberations at the State Committee Meeting here, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat called on AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa at her Poes Garden Residence yesterday afternoon and announced the alliance.

Islamabad, Dec. 6 : Pakistan went into a state of ‘high alert’ last weekend after President Asif Ali Zardari received a threatening phone call made by someone who said he was Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Several political, diplomatic and security sources have confirmed to the Dawn that for nearly 24 hours last weekend, the incident continued to send jitters across the world. To some world leaders the probability of an accidental war appeared very high.

London, Dec 6 : The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has determined that repairing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which has been built to simulate the big bang, could cost up to 35 million Swiss francs (20 million pounds or 29 million dollars).

Repairs will cost 15 million Swiss francs, and spare parts another 10-20 million Swiss francs, said CERN spokesman James Gillies.

Manila - Seventeen people, including a 7-year-old girl, were killed in a running gunbattle between police officers and suspected robbers in the Philippine capital, a police report said Saturday.

London, Dec. 6: In the wake of last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai, the British Royal Navy and the police have stepped up patrolling along the River Thames to prevent the possibility of a Mumbai-style terror attack.

The Telegraph quoted London’s Mayor Boris Johnson as saying that the security arrangements on the river through the heart of the city are being reviewed ahead of the London 2012 Olympics.

"There is a great deal of work going on. There certainly are extensive preparations to stop a Mumbai-style operation on the Thames. They have thought all that through. There is substantial organisation to guard against the possibility of some sort of riparian assault," The Times also quoted him, as saying.

QUEANBEYAN, Australia, Dec. 5 -- An Australian woman and her grown son and daughter were charged Friday with the killing of a bartender whose body was found in a New South Wales river in March.

Ben Beaudean, 25, of Queanbeyan was charged with the murder of Danny Ralph, The Canberra Times reported. His mother, Cody, and his pregnant sister, Taneeka, were charged as accessories after the fact.

Ralph, 46, a father of five, had been living in Queanbeyan in New South Wales since the mid 1990s. He worked at the Royal Hotel and was known to hang out at other bars in town.