Gaza City  An Israeli aircraft Thursday afternoon killed Said Siam, the minister of the interior in the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, the al-Quds radio station of the radical Islamic Jihad movement announced.

Siam's brother was also killed in the strike on his brother's house, as was the head of Hamas' security apparatus, Salah Abu Shreh.

Siam, one of the top Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, is the most senior figure in the Islamist movement to be killed since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against Hamas on December 27.

London  - Consumers from Latin America to eastern Europe have apparently resisted drowning their economic sorrows in a glass of beer, trading figures from SABMiller, the world's second-largest brewer, showed Thursday.

The group's trading update for its third quarter up to the end of December showed that lager shipments in Europe dropped by one per cent as a result of the "impacts of the global financial crisis on consumer disposable income."

New York  - An anti-piracy group held its first meeting on Wednesday at the United Nations to discuss best management practices for ships plying the Gulf of Aden and waters near the Horn of Africa if they are attacked or seized by Somali pirates.

The one-day meeting at UN headquarters in New York was organized by the Contact Group on Somali Piracy, which was chaired by US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, Mark T Kimmitt.

Washington  - Bone-chilling blasts of Arctic air caused temperatures to plummet across large swathes of Midwestern and Northeastern US Wednesday, in the coldest wave so far this winter.

Temperatures dropped to between minus 27 degrees Celsius and minus 40 degrees Celsius in several states such as Minnesota, North Dakota and Illinois, which were snow-bound and battered by powerful gusts.

Bogota  - An attack by leftist rebels in the Colombian town of Roberto Payan left six people dead, including three children, Colombian authorities said Wednesday.

The attack was perpetrated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) around midday Tuesday, and it was aimed at the town police station, said Roberto Payan Mayor Pedro Angulo.

Initially following the attack, three children - aged 8, 11 and 12 - were reported dead. Ten injured people were taken to hospitals in Tumaco and in Pasto.

San Francisco  - Stanford University is launching a 100- million-dollar energy institute to fund research into batteries, solar cells and other aspects of green energy.

The California university has spawned technologies that led to the formation of companies like Hewlett Packard and Google, and the new institute is expected to boost the ability of Silicon Valley to become a world leader in green energy. The tech region already boast a 500-million-dollar energy institute at the University of California at Berkeley.