Baghdad - The British military will hand over its base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra to US forces on Tuesday, local media reported.
Control of the base near Basra's airport will officially pass from the British to the US military in a ceremony on Tuesday, Baghdad's Voices of Iraq news agency reported on Monday, citing "a high-level official" at the Basra airport.
Iraq and Great Britain signed a deal last year whereby some 4,100 British troops will remain in Iraq to train the Iraqi army before British forces withdraw completely in July 2009.
Washington - A man who went on a shooting rampage at a small-town nursing home in North Carolina was apprehended by a local police officer who stormed the facility of his own accord, police said Monday.
Seven elderly people and a nurse were killed Sunday in the shooting at a health and rehabilitation centre that has shaken the tiny town of Carthage in the US state of North Carolina.
Sana'a, Yemen - Yemen on Saturday extradited to Saudi Arabia five Saudi suspects wanted in their country over links to terrorist activities, security sources said.
The sources said the suspects included Abdullah Abdul-Rahman al- Harbi, a leading al-Qaeda suspect who was arrested in southern Yemen on March 14.
Yemen and Saudi Arabia have in recent years swapped dozens of suspects under a security agreement signed by the two countries in 2004.
Athens - Lights went out on the Acropolis for Earth Hour 2009, and hundreds of residents in the Athens neighborhood of Plaka walked around with lanterns beneath the ancient rock for an hour to highlight the threat from climate change.
Environmental group WWF, which started the global event to turn out the lights at prominent landmarks, homes and businesses, is hoping 1 billion people will take part this year to draw attention to climate change.
Wellington - New Zealand's government welfare agency has confirmed it examines internet social network sites like Facebook to catch benefit fraudsters, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Young mother Lauren Kaney, 22, of Mount Maunganui, was convicted in court last week of getting three times the weekly benefit she was entitled to, after claiming she lived on her own with her 2-year-old- son.
In fact, her Bebo and Facebook pages revealed she was living with the boy's father, the Herald on Sunday reported.
Hamburg - The 13 crew members of a German gas tanker hijacked in January by pirates in the Gulf of Eden have been released, a Hamburg-based shipping company said Saturday.
The crew members - 12 Filipino and one Indonesian - were all healthy and unharmed, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement confirmed on their website.
Hamburg Abendblatt newspaper reported that a ransom had been paid.
The pirates were originally thought to have demanded 4.7 million euros (6.3 million dollars) to release the vessel, captured January 29.
Baghdad - The British military will hand over its base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra to US forces on Tuesday, local media reported.
Washington - A man who went on a shooting rampage at a small-town nursing home in North Carolina was apprehended by a local police officer who stormed the facility of his own accord, police said Monday.
Sana'a, Yemen - Yemen on Saturday extradited to Saudi Arabia five Saudi suspects wanted in their country over links to terrorist activities, security sources said.
Athens - Lights went out on the Acropolis for Earth Hour 2009, and hundreds of residents in the Athens neighborhood of Plaka walked around with lanterns beneath the ancient rock for an hour to highlight the threat from climate change.
Wellington - New Zealand's government welfare agency has confirmed it examines internet social network sites like Facebook to catch benefit fraudsters, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Hamburg - The 13 crew members of a German gas tanker hijacked in January by pirates in the Gulf of Eden have been released, a Hamburg-based shipping company said Saturday.
