New Delhi  - A delegation of all major Indian political parties on Saturday failed to reach an understanding with agitators spearheading protests over land for a Hindu shrine in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state, leading to fears of further violence.

More than 18 people have died and scores been injured in protests for and against a proposal to give state-owned forest land to a body that runs the annual pilgrimage to the Hindu cave shrine of Amarnath in the high Himalayas.

New York  - The United Nations Security Council has called another emergency meeting scheduled for Friday afternoon in New York, after failing Thursday night to agree on a response to the escalation of violence in Georgia.

Thursday's late night meeting was called by Russia, whose ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, accused Georgia of aggressive behaviour toward the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Washington  - The United States is sending an envoy to help bring about a ceasefire in the escalating conflict in Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region, the US State Department said Friday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had also been in contact with a number of foreign officials to seek an end to the hostilities, which threatened to turn into a full-out war between Russia and Georgia.

Washington - With two weeks left before Democrats meet in Colorado to nominate Barack Obama as their presidential candidate, much of the debate this week has been on what Hillary and Bill Clinton would do during the August 25-28 party unity event.

It appeared late Thursday that former president Bill Clinton, one of the Democratic Party's most important figures, has been invited by Obama to be a lead speaker on August 27, the evening before Obama accepts the nomination in Denver, media reports said, citing party and campaign officials.

Mexico City  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday proposed life sentences for those found guilty of kidnapping, in a move to curb a crime wave in the North American nation.

He sent the proposal to Parliament in the wake of outrage over the recent murder of a 14-year-old kidnapped boy.

The life sentences would be aimed particularly at public officials - such as police officers - involved in kidnappings, as well as those who snatch children, or abuse or sell their victims.

Baghdad  - Iraq and the United States are close to reaching a deal under which all US combat troops would leave Iraq by December 2010, an Iraqi lawmaker said Thursday.

Haider al-Ababdi, a Shiite parliamentarian from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa Party, said US troops would leave Iraq's cities and remain inside their bases by June 30, 2009. He said the two governments had been close to reaching a deal for about a week.

He also told broadcaster CNN that other troops would leave by the end of the next year.