New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that he and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper discussed efforts to secure the freedom of a Canadian diplomat kidnapped last December in Niger.

Robert Fowler, a high-ranking Canadian official and former ambassador to the United Nations, disappeared on December 14 with his foreign affairs aide, Louis Guay. They were in a UN-marked vehicle and were believed to be kidnapped with their driver.

London  - The first prisoner to be released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since US President Barack Obama ordered a review of all detainee cases, arrived in Britain Monday alleging that he was subjected to "medieval" torture in which British intelligence services had been complicit.

Binyam Mohamed, a 30-year-old Ethiopian national who lived in Britain before his arrest in Pakistan in 2002, touched down at a military airport near London, accompanied by a doctor and government officials.

He was detained by immigration officials for several hours of questioning but released Monday evening, London's Metropolitan Police said.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama on Monday promised to cut the federal budget deficit more than half by the end of his four- year term in office, despite a deepening recession that has forced the government to spend record amounts of money.

Obama, who took office in January, inherited a 2008 budget deficit of 1.3 trillion dollars. That figure is expected to top 2 trillion dollars - more than 10 per cent of US gross domestic product - in 2009 as the country confronts a massive economic crisis.

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called on Myanmar's military junta to release all political prisoners, including the main opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi who was not among those freed over the weekend.

Ban also said he was ready to visit Myanmar, but urged the junta to ensure a return to democracy.

Ban visited Myanmar in May 2008, after the devastation caused by cyclone Nargis, which killed more than 100,000 people and left 2 million homeless. That visit focused on humanitarian assistance to the impoverished nation.

Brussels - The European Union flirted with chaos Monday as top diplomats complained about a "cliquey" response to the recession and failed to agree on the use of community funds to aid economic recovery.

"I must admit I'm extremely worried about the EU's institutional chaos. Never in the EU's history has there been a period like this with so many cliques," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said after regular talks in Brussels with his EU counterparts.

Berlin - A German union seeking pay rises for Berlin airport staff vowed to disrupt operations at two capital-city airports, with workers to walk off the job for three and a half hours on Tuesday.

Officials said Monday that in the period to be affected, after 6 am Tuesday, 50 takeoffs and 30 landings were timetabled at Tegel Airport and 20 takeoffs and nine landings were scheduled at Schoenefeld Airport.