Wellington - A man alleged to have sparked a high-speed chase that ended in police shooting dead an innocent bystander had no recollection of the events, his lawyer told a court Monday.

Stephen Hohepa McDonald, 50, faced 29 charges, including 10 counts of using a firearm against police law on Friday and unlawfully possessing a gun when he appeared in the Auckland District Court.

Halatau Naitoko, 17, a courier driver, was fatally wounded by police Friday in a shoot-out with a gunman who tried to hijack his van after crashing a stolen car following a

Washington, January 26 : The former Bahamian Minister of Tourism and long-time friend of John Travolta, accused of involvement in the alleged extortion plot concerning the actor, has insisted that he is innocent.

Travolta was said to have become a victim of the extortion attempt over the death of his 16-year-old son Jett, who died from a seizure during a family holiday in the Bahamas on January 2.

The actor and his wife Kelly Preston had alleged that blackmailers threatened to publish a photo of their teenager as he lay struggling for his life, and make "false claims" unless they were paid "millions of dollars".

New Delhi  - India honoured security personnel killed during the Mumbai terrorist attacks as the nation celebrated its 60th Republic Day Monday with a military parade in New Delhi amid heavy security.

The event began on a sombre note with President Pratibha Patil conferring India's highest gallantry awards, the Ashok Chakra medals posthumously to six policemen and commandos for bravery during the November 26 attacks.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group for carrying out the attacks that killed 173 people including 26 foreign nationals.

Hamburg - Sensitivity to light, a steady decline in eyesight or blurred vision can all indicate the formation of a cataract.

Cataracts, a thickening of the eye's lens, impairs vision and can occur at any stage of a person's life, though they are more common among the elderly.

Bonn, Germany - Retirement once meant imminent death in many cases. People stopped working at age 65 and some dropped dead a few months later.

"This was a much greater problem in former times," remarked Uwe Kleinemas, director of the Centre for the Cultures of Ageing at the University of Bonn. Thanks to improved working conditions, people today were no longer so physically exhausted at the end of their working lives.

Kleinemas noted a wholly different problem faced by many older people, however: "They want to continue working but are not permitted to do so." This, too, can be hazardous to health.

Brussels - The European Union is ready to help the United States close the infamous Guantanamo detention centre by taking in some of its inmates, but it is up to individual member states to decide how many they welcome, EU foreign ministers said on Monday.

"I think we need to look at this from a humanitarian perspective, a human rights perspective. If there are people who are not tried, are let free but they can't go back to their own countries I think we in Europe should take our responsibility," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said in a meeting with EU counterparts.