Beijing - The first Asia-Europe Meeting was held in 1996 in Bangkok as informal talks among 16 European Union members and 10 Asian nations.

The seventh summit this year has grown to include 45 delegations: the European Union's 27 members, 16 Asian states as well as the European Commission and the secretariat of the 10-nation Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The participants represent more than half the world: 58 per cent of its population, 60 per cent of its trade and 50 per cent of its economic performance.

Jakarta, Oct 24 : The three Islamic militants convicted of the 2002 Bali bombings will be executed in early November.

According to news. com. au, a spokesman for Indonesia''s Attorney General''s office said they would be shot dead in their prison on Nusakambangan Island, off Central Java, where their high-security jail is located.

The spokesman also indicated that the Attorney General did not believe there were valid grounds for any further legal appeals by the three convicted - Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra.

Washington, Oct 24 : Scientists have gained a deeper insight into the hot, dense matter found at the centre of planets and as a result, has provided further understanding into controlled thermonuclear fusion, which would pave the way for cleaner energy in the future.

The research was undertaken by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Oxford, working alongside researchers at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Central Laser Facility.

This deeper insight into planets could extend our comprehension of fusion energy – the same energy that powers the sun, and laser driven fusion as a future energy source.

Srinagar, Kashmir - Life in India-administered Kashmir came to a halt on Friday in response to a call by the separatist Hurriyat Conference to mark United Nations Day with a strike, police said.

Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who issued the call for the strike, said the protest was to remind the world body of its "indifference" to Kashmir and that the Kashmir dispute remained unresolved for more than six decades.

Ankara - The Turkish military on Friday claimed to have killed 25 Kurdish rebels and wounded several others in airstrikes last week on Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq.

General Staff spokesman Metin Gurak told reporters that Turkish war planes hit the PKK positions in the Qandil mountains near the Iraqi border with Iran on October 17.

The PKK uses mountainous northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks inside Turkey.

Ankara blames the separatist group for the deaths of more than 35,000 people since the early 1980s when the PKK began its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east of Turkey.

Frankfurt - Global shares are ending the week on a grim note, with a new wave of selling hitting European stocks Friday as concerns grew about the outlook for corporate profits.

Picking up on steep falls on Asian markets and volatile trading on Wall Street, Europe's blue-chip Stoxx 50 plunged more than 6 per cent in early trading Friday with a steady stream of weak third-quarter earnings reports fuelling worries about a looming recession.