Lalthanhawla, who steered the Congress to a landslide win in the Mizoram elections after a ten year gap, was today sworn in as Chief Minister for a record fourth time along with two ministers.

Governor Lt General M M Lakhera administered the oath of office to 68-year-old Lal Thanhawla him, R Lalzirliana, Senior Vice-President of Congress in the state and H Liansailova, a former bureaucrat and party treasurer, at the Raj Bhavan at Aizawl.

Lal Thanhawla was sworn in as the sixth chief minister of the state. None other before him has ever been chief mnister four times in the state.

Ashok Gehlot was chosen to be the new Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

57-year-old Gehlot, a former chief minister, was unanimously elected leader by the Congress Legislature Party after intense consultations with MLAs, AICC observer Digvijay Singh, said.

The chief minister-elect said later that he would work to provide an "able, transparent and competent" government that will cater to all the sections, castes and communities.

Gehlot had spearheaded the Congress campaign to reinstall its government defeating BJP in Rajasthan.

A Congress MLA was suspended from the Orissa Assembly for seven days for allegedly throwing a headphone towards the Speaker on Thursday.

Speaker Kishore Mohanty suspended legislator from Koraput Tara Prasad Bahinipati for seven days when the Government Chief Whip Bikram Keshari Arukh moved a resolution in this regard.

Though the Speaker asked Bahinipati to leave the House, the Congress MLA refused to do the same.

Brussels - European Union leaders are set to agree on a 200- billion-euro (265-billion-dollar) shot in the arm for the bloc's struggling economy, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday.

"I expect that we will reach an agreement on the volumes proposed by the European Commission," Juncker, who also acts as the powerful chairman of the group of countries that share the euro, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Brussels - European Union leaders are heading for a deal on making a pledge to cut greenhouse-gas emissions legally binding, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday.

But the proposed compromise would be disastrous for world efforts to stop global warming, seriously damaging the EU's own credibility, environmental group WWF said in a statement.

"We are heading towards a deal. Italy is obtaining everything it requested," Berlusconi told journalists on the fringes of the EU's year-end summit in Brussels.

Durban, South Africa  - An invasion of Zimbabwe or tougher sanctions to dislodge President Robert Mugabe are not on the cards, a senior official in South Africa's ruling party said in Durban on Thursday.

"I don't think invading Zimbabwe or sanctions would work," African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Gwede Mantashe told journalists and editors at a breakfast in Durban.