Mons, Belgium - Three NATO warships have reached the coast of Somalia and are ready to defend United Nations vessels from possible attacks by pirates, the alliance confirmed Friday.

Italy's ITS Durand de la Penne, Greece's HS Themistokles and Britain's HMS Cumberland were to begin escorting World Food Programme (WFP) vessels carrying food aid to Africa.

Bucharest - Unknown vandals have knocked over and, in some cases, destroyed 131 headstones in Bucharest's Jewish cemetery.

According to the Mediafax news agency on Friday, the vandals also smashed windows in the administrative offices of the cemetery in Romania's capital.

Some office equipment was also destroyed.

No anti-Semitic slogans were discovered on the destroyed headstones, according to police.

Romania's Justice Ministry denounced the vandalism and promised a speedy investigation of the crime and punishment for those responsible.

There are only about 9,000 remaining members of Romania's Jewish community.

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Friday ratcheted back an earlier threat not to participate in a regional meeting on the crisis in Zimbabwe, saying party leader Morgan Tsvangirai would attend, despite still lacking a passport.

"Yes, he is attending. But he still doesn't have his passport," MDC spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said, referring to Monday's meeting of a group of leaders from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the 15-nation regional political alliance.

Prague - Czechs began voting Friday in Senate run-off elections that have become a key test for Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek ahead of his country's EU presidency in the first half of next year.

The run-offs came a week after Topolanek's senior ruling Civic Democrats lost a regional election to their arch-rivals, the main opposition Social Democratic Party.

The weakened premier hoped to mitigate the defeat in the run-offs ending Saturday.

To focus on political hurdles at home, Topolanek, one of the most pro-US leaders in eastern Europe, decided to cancel next week's US trip, including a White House visit with US President George W Bush, his spokeswoman said.

Hanoi- Vietnam's trade deficit in the first ten months of the year hit a record 16.3 billion dollars, up 77 per cent from a year earlier, local media report on Friday.

While the country's exports did rise, with total revenues of 53.8 billion dollars, up 36.7 per cent year-on-year, it spent 70.1 billion dollars on imports, up 42.6 per cent over the same period last year.

These preliminary figures were issued by the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Beijing  - Asian and European leaders plan to call for new goals to fight climate change up to 2012 to be agreed by the end of next year, according to a draft summit statement seen Friday.

"Leaders welcomed the substantial progress made at the climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007," said the draft "chair's statement" from the biannual Asia-Europe Meeting, which opened Friday.

"They confirmed their commitment to securing an ambitious, effective and comprehensive agreed outcome now, up to and beyond 2012, by the end of 2009 on the basis of the Bali road map," said the draft, which is scheduled to be issued on Saturday at the close of the summit.