Washington  - The US Senate has refused to seat Roland Burris, the candidate selected by embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill president-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat.

The secretary of the Senate rejected Burris' credentials because they had not been properly certified by Illinois officials, and would not allow him to take the oath of office as Congress opened its new session on Tuesday.

Senate leaders had vowed to block Blagojevich's appointment of Burris, 71, because of the ongoing investigation of the governor, who was arrested December 9 on corruption charges.

Cairo - Hamas will not accept a ceasefire with Israel unless all aggression against the Gaza Strip is halted, a Hamas spokesman said Tuesday.

The Lebanon-based Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the Hamas delegation in Cairo focused on achieving a halt of all aggression, then a ceasefire might be negotiated.

A Hamas delegation arrived late on Monday in Cairo to hold the first round of talks since the launch of Israeli military action in Gaza last month.

Tel Aviv  -  Palestinian militants fired mortar shells from the UN school in northern Gaza which was shelled by Israel and which killed more than 46 civilians, a military spokesman in Tel Aviv charged.

He said Israeli ground troops stationed on the outskirts of the Jabaliya refugee camp responded by firing mortar shells in the direction of the militants.

"This is not the first time that Palestinian militants have fired from within UN schools," he said.

The sharp escalation in the energy war between Ukraine and Russia led to big cuts in gas supplies across Europe Tuesday amid freezing winter temperatures.

The second reduction since January 1 by Russian gas monopolist Gazprom saw shipments cut to just 72 million cubic meters of gas for European consumers, from 260 million on Monday and an average of 300 million previously.

Officials in both Russia and Ukraine confirmed plans to renew talks on ending the conflict in Moscow on Thursday. But the sides remained far apart on a host of issues.

Amman - Jordan and the European Union on Tuesday reached agreement on setting up a "joint mechanism" for delivering humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip as the Israeli offensive into the salient continued its eleventh day.

Dhaka  - Bangladesh's President Iajuddin Ahmed Tuesday appointed Awami League (AL) leader Sheikh Hasina Wazed as prime minister of the country for a five-year term, officials said.

Hasina, 61, whose AL-led alliance won a crushing victory in the December 29 general elections, was sworn in as the 12th premier of the country.

It is her second term in office as prime minister.

The newly appointed premier reiterated her pledges to lower the prices of essential commodities and improve law and order on an urgent basis.