Bangkok - Thai shares jumped 6.39 per cent in value Monday as investors snapped up energy sector stocks, confident that oil prices will rise because of the crisis in the Middle East, brokers said.

New Delhi  - More than 6 million truckers went on an indefinite strike ac

Kabul - The fledgling Afghan national army was to grow to more than 100,000 troops by the end of this year, a spokesman said Monday.

The troops are to be trained by US-led international forces, as NATO commanders in Afghanistan demand additional soldiers to effectively combat the resurgent Taliban militants.

So far a total of 85,000 army soldiers, drawn from Afghanistan's various ethnic groups, have been trained by military officers from the US, France and Britain since the start of the program in 2002.

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Monday his country will lead a call to convene special session of the United Nations General Assembly to press for a halt to escalating violence in Gaza.

Abdullah said Malaysia's permanent representative to the UN will hold discussions with contact groups of the Non-Aligned Movement and the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, to get the UN to convene the special session.

"The world must firmly express itself and demand a resolution of the issue," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

New Delhi - At least 19 slum dwellers died in India's eastern Kolkata city after dr

Tokyo - New car sales in Japan dropped the lowest in 34 years in 2008 as consumer appetite waned amid economic recession, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Monday.

The sales of new cars fell to 3,212,342 units in 2008, down 6.5 per cent from the year before, the association said. The figures exclude small car sales.

Annual sales in the record year of 1990 reached 5,975,089 units.

Sales of passenger cars fell 5.2 per cent, while truck sales declined 14.8 per cent and bus sales dipped 1.8 per cent.