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Prague - Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an opponent of the European Union's reform Lisbon Treaty, said that the bloc's deal with Ireland that would enable a new
referendum on the stalled pact should be submitted for ratification by the national parliament.

The treaty, which is designed to boost the EU's global standing through reforming its institutions, has been stalled since Irish voters rejected in a referendum a year ago.

Budapest - Hungarian police Wednesday moved in to break up a protest by the environmental group Greenpeace demanding to know what the government is doing with 132 million dollars from the sale of carbon credits.

The activists set up a green tent in front of the Prime Minister's Office in the Hungarian capital Budapest, and brandished placards calling for the money from the sale of part of its carbon emissions quota to be used for environmental projects.

Dhaka - Bangladesh will formally complain to the United Nations against claims of India and Myanmar in a row over maritime waters in the Bay of Bengal, the country's
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed said Wednesday.

The dispute centres on the extended continental shelf in the bay which Bangladesh shares with its neighbours - over 22000 square with India and 22,000 nautical miles with
Myanmar.

Washington - A number of major US banks on Wednesday returned emergency loans that they were given by the government at the height of the financial crisis last October.

Ten major banks were given the go-ahead last week by President Barack Obama's administration to return the funds, totalling about 68 billion dollars.

JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, BB&T Corp and US Bancorp all said they returned the money on Wednesday and the other six were expected to make similar announcements.

Mexico City - The Mexican Navy found five tons of cocaine hidden in frozen shark meat aboard a ship bound for the United States, during a weekend raid that dealt a hefty blow to the drug cartels.

The drugs were hidden in two containers onboard the Dover Straits, a freight ship sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands from South America to the US, Mexican daily El Universal reported Wednesday.

The haul of drugs, the largest in recent years, took place in the Puerto Progreso harbour on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Islamabad - Pakistani police said Wednesday they had detained one of the seven gunmen involved in the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3.

Police produced a hooded suspect they identified as Neak Muhammad, alias Zubair, before the media in Lahore. The hooded man admitted being one of the seven who ambushed the cricketers near a roundabout.

"I was brought to Lahore two days before the attack," the man told reporters.