New Delhi, Jan 21, : Union Minister for Rural Development, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Wednesday said that over 35 million rural households have been provided employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) during current financial year so far.

Addressing an international seminar on rural poverty in the national capital, Raghuvansh Prasad said, "NREGA not only provides an opportunity to strengthen the grass root processes of democracy, but also the livelihood security and an opportunity to live with dignity to the rural poor.

Maputo- Sub-Saharian African countries are currently losing more than 1 billion dollars yearly due to illegal fishing in their waters, a senior government official in Mozambique revealed this week.

Mozambique Deputy Fisheries Minister Victor Borges said that foreign fishing vessels were regularly spotted fishing illegally in African waters, depleting fish stocks.

"Our countries are witnessing without acting the destruction of fisheries in the region. Every year, we estimate that we lose over one billion dollars to illegal fishing."

Brussels - The European Union's top justice official Wednesday welcomed US President Barack Obama's decision to temporarily suspend prosecutions at the US's controversial Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

"I am extremely pleased that one of the first actions of President Obama has been to turn the page on this sad episode of the Guantanamo prison," said EU Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Jacques Barrot.

New York - Industrial concern United Technologies (UTC) reported Wednesday that it managed a 1.14 billion dollar profit in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 1.06 billion dollars a year earlier, despite a slippage in sales.

The Hartford, Connecticut-based concern said sales came to 14.5 billion dollars in the quarter, compared with 14.7 billion dollars in the final 2007 period.

"UTC had a solid close to 2008 in spite of deteriorating end markets and currency headwinds," President and CEO Louis Chenevert commented in a company statement.

Lusaka - Zambia's Luanshya Copper Mines (LCM) wound up operations Wednesday, citing the sharp drop in copper prices on the international market due to the global recession.

Company spokesperson Sydney Chileya told private radio that LCM would finish paying off its 1,740 workers Wednesday and ruled out any possibility of reopening the mine.

Last month, LCM, a joint venture between Swiss-based International Mineral Resources and Bein Stein Group Resources of Israel, already shut down one of its copper mines at Baluba and its Chambishi cobalt smelter, the country's largest.

Amman - Jordanian Islamists on Wednesday expressed cautious "optimism" over the policies the new US president Barack Obama was expected to pursue towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, but said the test would be how he was going to behave on the ground.

"We have optimism that Obama will come up with real changes and honour the promises in this respect he had made during his election campaign and in his inaugural speech," Zaki Banir Ershaid, Secretary General of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.