London, Jan 21 : The risks of severe complications linked with epidurals and spinal anaesthetics are "exaggerated", according to a study.

The study, led by Dr Tim Cook of the Royal United Hospital, Bath, suggests that the procedures are safer than previously thought.

It showed that the risk of permanent harm linked with spinal anaesthetic or epidural was about one in 23,000 to one in 50,000.

Permanent injury in the study was defined as symptoms lasting more than six months.

The risk of being paralysed was two to three times less than of suffering any permanent harm.

Athens - More than 9,000 tractors blocked major highways across Greece and the main airport on the island of Crete on Wednesday as protests by farmers against plummeting prices for their crops continued across the country.

Tens of hundreds of tractors blocked the Promachonas border crossing in Serres, northern Greece while hundreds more gathered at the Exochia customs point in Drama causing several kilometres of traffic jams from the large number of trucks that had been prevented from leaving the country.

Nairobi - Kenyan newspapers on Wednesday went Obama-crazy as they hailed the beginning of the reign of the United States' first black president, whose roots lie in Kenya.

Images of President Obama were plastered all over the Daily Nation and The Standard, Kenya's two leading newspapers.

While there was much praise for the man whose father grew up in the western Kenyan village of Kogelo, the newspapers also sounded a note of caution.

New York, Jan 21 : Hotel heiress Paris Hilton was seen having a steamy time with her new candy man Chris DeWolfe, the CEO of MySpace.

The two were all over each other while they were at Tao at the Sundance Lift.

"They were grinding each other on the dance floor forever, before lying together on a banquette," the New York Daily News quoted a source as saying.

"Then the couple began sucking face hard. They left out the back door, with her hand in his pants pocket," the source said.

A representative for MySpace refused to comment on execs' personal lives.

Madrid - The militant Basque separatist group ETA early Wednesday threatened to carry out attacks against entrepreneurs, technicians and others associated with the construction of a Basque high-speed rail network, and against national Spanish and local media.

In a communique published by the Basque newspaper Gara, ETA claimed responsibility for the killing of entrepreneur Ignacio Uria on December 3.

Uria's company participated in the construction of a high-speed rail network linking three Basque cities with each other, Madrid and France by 2013.

Washington, Jan 21 : American actor Forest Whitaker has been chosen to a