It's the second day of transporter's strike across the country after the UPA government declined their demand to reduce fuel prices. A few number of trucks and commercial vehicles moved on the roads across various states. Meanwhile, LPG and Petroleum tankers truckers have also decided to extend support to strike.

Ankara - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday repeated calls for Israel to put an immediate halt to its attacks in the Gaza Strip and also made a veiled criticism of the United States, describing the "multiple standard" of those who have failed to condemn the attacks.

In a hard hitting speech to parliamentary colleagues, Erdogan repeated Turkey's condemnation of Israel's military actions describing the operations as an "humanitarian disgrace" and a "stain on history's page."

Durban - Six months after violent xenophobic clashes in South Africa, renewed tensions between locals and foreigners were reported in the port city of Durban on Tuesday.

At least one person was killed and two seriously injured, The Mercury newspaper reported. Heavily-armed police were called in to intervene in a hostile confrontation involving locals and foreigners from other parts of Africa living in the area, the report said.

On Sunday, around two dozen people carrying machetes and other weapons stormed apartment buildings inhabited by foreigners, forcing several to flee by jumping out of windows.

Colombo - Security forces have started an advance towards a former military garrison in northern Sri Lanka in an attempt to drive Tamil rebels off the Jaffna peninsula.

The government troops reached the southern reaches of the Elephant Pass area, 395 kilometres north of the capital Colombo, and in the process captured a village earlier controlled by the rebels.

The Elephant Pass is strategically located at the entry to the northern Jaffna peninsula. The military twice lost control of the area to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Damascus - French President Nicolas Sarkozy again called for Mideast peace Tuesday, following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the continuing conflict between Israel and the Islamist forces of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"Every party should deploy and exercise pressure on Hamas so that weapons should be quiet and silent," said Sarkozy, who has faulted Hamas for prompting the Israeli attack with a week of missile attacks into Israel after a ceasefire expired December 19.

London - Tottenham Hotspur have agreed a fee with Portsmouth to re-sign striker Jermain Defoe.

The deal, which is expected to be around 15 million pounds, will see Defoe return to Spurs less than a year after he joined Portsmouth for 7.5 million pounds (11 million dollars).

The move will see Defoe reunited with manager Harry Redknapp, who signed him from Spurs last year before joining the London club late

in 2008.

Defoe is due to undergo a medical at Tottenham later on Tuesday.