Yangon - Myanmar's junta allowed an FM-radio service to open in the Rakhine State for the first time last week and plans to open similar services nationwide by July, government officials confirmed Monday.

"We started test-broadcast to Rakhine State on 27 March, 12 hours daily from 7 am to 7 pm," an official who requested anonymity said. "The station, temporarily named Pyinsawaddi, will cover four townships in the Rakhine State including Sittwe."

Sittwe is a major port city in the Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.

Paris - The European Union was one island richer Sunday after the mostly Muslim citizens of the Mayotte islands in the Indian Ocean voted for full integration into the French nation.

The 374-square-kilometre island group is geographically part of the Comoros islands, between Madagascar and northern Mozambique.

But it has been politically separate since the 1970s, when it voted against independence. It has belonged to France since 1841

Mumbai, Mar 29 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Sunday said that the Bollywood actor-turned-politician Govinda has expressed unwillingness to contest the upcoming general elections.

"Govinda has declined the offer to contest the Lok Sabha elections again," Chavan told reporters at State Congress party office here.

Govinda is the Congress MP from Mumbai North parliamentary constituency. He won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from the constituency after defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ram Naik.

New Delhi, Mar 29 : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani on Sunday said that the party's decision to reject Election Commission's advice not to field Varun Gandhi for the Lok Sabha Polls, was right.

"The party has taken a correct stand under the law and in accordance with Constitution," Advani said.

He, however, advised the party candidates to show restraint in their speeches.

Bhagalpur, Mar 29 : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday claimed that her party was the only alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose policies are influenced by big houses and brokers.

"The BSP is the only alternative to the Congress and the BJP," Mayawati told a rally here.

The BSP supremo blamed the Congress and the BJP for ruining country during their stints in power.

Hluboka Castle, Czech Republic  - Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller on Saturday had to abandon a meeting in the Czech Republic with fellow European Union ministers after suffering from exhaustion and being rushed to hospital.

"He was not feeling well in the morning," Zuzana Opletalova, a spokeswoman for the Czech Foreign Ministry, told German Press Agency dpa.

Subsequent check-ups at the Ceske Budejovice County Hospital showed that the 66-year-old minister had "nothing serious," Opletalova said.