Madrid - The Spanish government Wednesday won initial parliamentary support for its 2009 budget despite being accused of downplaying the impact of the country's deepening economic crisis.

The backing of two regionalist parties allowed the governing Socialists to reject amendments that several parties had proposed to the budget, which is still pending definitive approval.

The amendments were scrapped with 177 votes, while 170 legislators voted for them and one abstained.

The opposition conservatives have argued that the 1 per cent growth forecast the budget is based on is unrealistic, given that growth has plummeted from 3.8 per cent in 2007 to close to zero this year.

Harare - The leader of President Robert Mugabe's notorious war veterans militia has threatened prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai over his failure to turn up this week for a regional summit on the Zimbabwean crisis in Swaziland.

The meeting of the politics and security troika of the Southern African Development Community, the 15-nation regional alliance, was meant to discuss the five-week stalemate in the implementation of a power-sharing agreement between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the two groupings of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

Tsvangirai refused to travel to the summit after Mugabe's regime refused to issue him with a new passport, giving him only an emergency travel document.

Ankara - Prosecutors on Wednesday launched an investigation into a speech made by the leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in which he attacked the government's policy regarding the Kurdish issue, the Anadolu news agency reported.

"The policy of denial, assimilation and eradication has affected people. Only the Kurds resisted. They still resist," DTP leader Ahmet Turk told supporters in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir.

The speech came after days of protests in south-eastern cities where Kurds angry at reports that Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan had been mistreated in prison have held running battles with police.

Athens/Nicosia  - The drought-stricken island of Cyprus welcomed its first rain storm in recent months Wednesday which ended up causing flooding to many parts of the eastern Mediterranean island.

Heavy storms forced the closure of two main roads in the capital Nicosia and emergency crews were called in to evacuate more than 300 homes due to heavy flooding.

Cyprus, which is heavily reliant on rainfall for water supplies, is suffering one of the worst droughts and water shortages in the past 100 years.

Prague - Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's government faced a parliamentary confidence motion Wednesday, just as the Czech Republic prepares to take over the EU presidency in January.

The left-leaning opposition sought the vote on ousting the government after Topolanek's Civic Democrats, in power since January 2007, were weakened by a defeat in regional elections Saturday.

Wellington, Oct 22 : Ice cream tastes better when it''s licked from a cone than eaten from a spoon, according to an expert.

The question of whether ice cream tastes better from a cone than when eaten from a spoon was a tricky hypothesis to prove.

Now, Kay McMath, a sensory scientist from Massey University and chief judge for the New Zealand Ice Cream Awards, has provided a scientific explanation to support the idea that ice cream tastes better when it''s licked, reports the NZPA.