Brussels - The European Union on Wednesday approved an Austrian plan to support the country's banking sector valued at 90 billion euros (116 billion dollars).

The plan, originally approved by the Austrian parliament on October 20, consists of a state guarantee for interbank loans capped at 75 billion euros, and a further guarantee for liabilities and assets capped at 15 billion euros.

The Austrian government informed the European Commission, the EU's executive, of its plans at the end of October.

The commission is tasked with overseeing the EU's strict competition rules, and therefore has the final say in matters of state aid.

Vienna - Opponents of the Turkish Ilisu dam seized rooms in the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG (OeKB) in Vienna on Wednesday, calling on the bank to pull out of the project on ecological and cultural grounds.

Austrian, German and Swiss export guarantees worth an estimated 450 million euros (577 million dollars) underpin the financing of the project to dam the Tigris river in south-eastern Turkey and build a power plant.

London - Blackburn Rovers coaching staff member Nigel Winterburn moved on Wednesday to give his support to under-fire manager Paul Ince.

Ince was one of the most respected young English managers when he took over from Mark Hughes in the summer, but after five straight defeats Blackburn lie second-bottom of the Premier League table.

His future is believed to have been discussed at a board meeting on Tuesday, with rumours of player unrest mounting.

But Winterburn, the former Arsenal defender who is the defensive coach at Rovers, insisted that Ince retains the confidence of the squad.

Seoul - The captain of the oil tanker involved in a collision with a barge off South Korea's coast in late 2007 has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail, the daily The Korea Times reported Wednesday.

The report said the first officer of the Hong Kong-registered tanker Hebei Spirit received an 8-month jail term, with a state court in Taejon finding both having been negligent in carrying out their duties.

The sentencing came in an appeals case after the two men had initially been acquitted last June.

The captain, and Indian national, and the first officer were also each fined 20 million won (14,000 dollars). The owners of the tanker and of the barge were also each fined 30 million won.

Geneva - Injury and violence were responsible for 900,000 children's deaths each year, 90 per cent of which were accidental, a United Nations report released Wednesday said.

The leading cause of death resulting from an injury was road traffic accidents, followed by drowning and fires or burns.

War made up only 2.3 per cent of child-injury deaths, according to the World Health Organization and the UN's Children Fund, UNICEF.

The first UN report on the subject said millions of children suffered lifelong disabilities due to injuries, and that the poor were at an increased risk.

In 2004, some 260,000 children died in road accidents, but only 7 per cent of them were in the most developed countries.

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Wednesday proposed a much-anticipated anti-corruption bill and another bill to restore integrity to the country's judiciary.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission bill, aimed to take effect in January, was aimed at stamping out corruption in the public and private sectors.

Abdullah also proposed an independent judicial body to manage the appointment of judges of superior courts.

Both bills came amid growing criticism that Abdullah has done little to make good on his pledge to clamp down on corruption since taking office in November 2003.