Moscow - Two Russian servicemen and two rebel fighters were killed in armed clashes overnight in Russia's strife-torn North Caucasus province of Chechnya, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

Another six men from the local police force and Interior Ministry troops were injured in the battle.

The gunfight broke out just before midnight Wednesday as Russian servicemen stormed an apartment block where suspected rebels were hiding in the town of Argun.

London, Dec 18 : Astronomers at Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, have spotted a mega maser emission inside a galaxy at the edge of the visible cosmos, which is the telltale sign of the presence of water.

According to a report in New Scientist, the telltale sign of the water is maser emission - the microwave equivalent of laser light - coming from warm water vapour inside a distant quasar.

The quasar, called MG J0414+0534, is so distant that its light has travelled for 11.1 billion years to reach the Earth, having left when the universe was only 2.5 billion years old.

It beats the previous distance record for a watery galaxy by many billions of light years.

London, Dec 18 : Former Prime Minister of Spain Jose Maria Aznar may have fathered the child of the French Justice Minister, Rachida Dati, who is eight months pregnant, according to rumours.

Although Dati, daughter of a Moroccan immigrant, has not revealed who the father is, but El Pais, the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Spain, said that Moroccan spies had investigated and were pointing to Aznar.

Aznar has strongly denied the allegation, reports the Independent.

Recently, a Madrid judge ordered the TV station Telecinco to pay Aznar 240,000 euros in damages for reporting in 2007 that Aznar and his wife, Ana Botella, were to separate because of a supposed infidelity by the famously uncharismatic Aznar.

Washington, Dec 18 : Members of the band `Coldplay' are persuading media mogul Simon Cowell to make a guest appearance on their tour - and criticize their performance.

The band members are a huge fan of the American Idol judge and love his mocking remarks.

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is hoping to convince Cowell to record a video segment for their upcoming concerts.

Vienna - The price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose by only 21 cents Wednesday, as the cartel decided to cut production by 2.2 million barrels per day.

One barrel (159 litres) of crude produced by OPEC stood at 40.95 dollars Wednesday, the Vienna-based organization announced Thursday.

After the meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Oran, Algeria, on Wednesday, the cartel's President Chakib Khelil said he hoped that the oil price would "evolve in due time to 70 to 80 dollars per barrel" as a result of the cut.