TopNews

Pretoria, South Africa - Five-time world champions Brazil cruised to a 3-0 victory over the United States to all but qualify for the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup on Thursday.

Felipe Melo in the seventh minute, Robinho in the 20th and Maicon in the 62nd gave Brazil a second successive win in Group B, which will be enough for a place in the last four if Italy defeat Egypt later in the day.

London - Northern Ireland's biggest and most lethal Protestant paramilitary groups have begun the process of arms decommissioning, reports in London said Thursday.

Indirect confirmation of the move came from Hugh Orde, the police chief of Northern Ireland, who welcomed the decision as "very good news."

Frankfurt  - Opel, the European subsidiary of General Motors, has opened its books to BAIC, a Chinese company which is trying to outbid the current front runner, a Frankfurt newspaper disclosed late Thursday.

Quoting GM sources, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the Beijing Automotive Industry Corp. (BAIC) was preparing a detailed bid and had already offered more attractive conditions than Canadian-based Magna.

Taipei  - A Taiwan company said Thursday it will launch a regular cruise service with China next week, making it the first such cross-strait service in six decades.

Following Taiwan's dropping a ban on sea links with China, the Excalibur International Marine Corp said it would launch the Taichung-Xiamen cruise starting Monday in conjunction with three travel agencies.

Windhoek  - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will lead a large trade delegation next week on visits to four African countries, including the continent's biggest oil producers, Namibian media reports said Thursday.

They said Medvedev would arrive in the desert country on June 25, after visiting Egypt, Nigeria and Angola.

Brussels  - Ireland cannot accept anything less than a full treaty to convince its people that the European Union's Lisbon Treaty will not change their neutrality and family laws, the country's prime minister wrote ahead of an EU summit on Thursday.