Reykjavik  - Iceland was Monday expecting to reach a quick deal with German depositors in Kaupthing Bank, one of the North Atlantic nation's three main banking groups that recently collapsed over the global credit crunch.

Kaupthing had some 30,000 customers in Germany.

Late Sunday, Iceland said it had agreed to reimburse British and Dutch depositors of failed internet bank Icesave, operated by the collapsed Landsbanki Bank.

The compensation agreed for the British and Dutch depositors was 20,000 euros (25,300 dollars).

Dhaka  - The maritime boundary talks between Bangladesh and Myanmar ended Monday with the two sides agreeing only to hold further talks to resolve their demarcation dispute, officials said.

"The issue was a complex one and the two sides agreed to continue their talks on the subject, with the next round of negotiations taking place in Myanmar," Bangladesh's foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the media after talks with visiting Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Maung Myint.

Maung led an 11-member Myanmar delegation at the two-day technical consultation to discuss the maritime boundary disputes, which flared over Myanmar's reported exploration for oil and gas in the Bay of Bengal earlier this month.

Baghdad  - Iraq's parliament on Monday completed the first reading of the final draft of the country's security pact with the United States, as opponents continued to denounce it.

As lawmakers were considering the deal, one policeman was killed and more than 30 people were injured in attacks across Iraq.

The 275-member house is set to review the pact over the coming days and vote on the deal by November 24, deputy speaker Khalid al- Attiyah said in a press conference.

Paris  - An appeals court in the northern French city of Douai on Monday reversed an earlier court decision annulling a marriage on the ground that the bride had lied about her non-virginity.

"A lie is no basis for the annulment of a marriage if it does not concern the fundamental character (of one of the partners)," the court wrote in its judgment.

The attorney for the husband said that the ruling "threatens individual liberties."

The couple, both Moroccan-born Muslims, married in 2006. The husband, a 30-year-old engineer who, asked for the annulment after his bride was unable to produce a bloody bedsheet on the wedding night.

Marrakesh/Madrid  - Environmental organizations Monday warned that the Mediterranean stocks of bluefin tuna are on the brink of collapse, calling for a fishing stop to allow the species to recuperate.

Demand for tuna had led to illegal and above-quota fishing, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned as 46 countries and other contracting parties to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) met in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.

Scientists recommend an annual fishing limit of 15,000 tons for East Atlantic bluefin tuna, but the captures amounted to 61,000 tons in 2007, the organization Oceana said, calling for permanent tuna reserves in key spawning areas.

Abu Dhabi  - A group of nations dubbed the "Friends of Pakistan" agreed, in principle, Monday to throw a financial lifeline to Pakistan.

Specific sums to be committed were not named Monday. There will be another meeting of the group in January followed by a ministerial- level meeting in February that should set the specific amounts of assistance to be expected.

Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, assistant foreign minister for South Asia Affairs, said the group plans to finance projects geared toward policing and security.