Brussels - Jose Manuel Barroso moved closer Friday to obtaining a second mandate as head of the European Union executive in Brussels after he received the key backing of French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a summit of EU leaders.

"I have always liked the way he works, and I have not changed my opinion ... I will not be ashamed to support him," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

Sarkozy had previously appeared less enthusiastic about backing Barroso, a conservative and former prime minister of Portugal.

Lucknow, Mar 20 : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday said that her party would contest alone in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"In all the states we will contest the election on our own and we will not tie up with any other political party," Mayawati said on the sidelines of a press conference here.

She also informed that her party would start its nationwide poll campaign from Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday.

New Delhi, Mar 20 : Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah has strongly condemned the people supporting war with Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attacks, and said there would not be a single citizen of Pakistan who desire war.

"There are many people who sprout nonsense about carpet bombing the enemy and we have the evidence, let's bomb them. They should take a little trouble to find out what actually happens in war, these guys should be given a gun each and send to the front to fight," Shah told NDTV in an exclusive interview.

Amman - Arab stock markets reacted positively this week to good news out of Wall Street and other global markets as well as to rising oil prices, financial analysts said Friday.

However, they expected regional markets to plateau in the coming weeks as investors monitor the first quarter results and world developments.

London - The assa

Munich - A Bavarian supermarket employee found more than just fruit when unpacking crates of bananas.

Two of the boxes contained 28 kilos of cocaine with a street value of 1.4 million euros (1.9 million dollars), police said Friday.

The female worker raised the alarm after finding the drugs in 26 plastic bags hidden under a layer of the fruit.

The bananas were shipped from Colombia to the Belgium port of Antwerp. From there they were sent by truck to Germany where they were delivered to the supermarket in Illertissen on Wednesday.