New Delhi - Police killed at least five suspected separatist rebels in India's north-eastern state of Manipur, a news report said Tuesday.

A group of militants in a vehicle opened fire at police on patrol in central Thoubal district late on Monday night, the PTI news agency reported.

Five rebels were killed in the ensuing gunbattle that lasted nearly half an hour, official sources told the PTI. Arms and ammunition were recovered from the scene.

Police said the slain militants belonged to the People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak.

Berlin - Germany is to re-introduce billions of euros in income-tax relief after the nation's highest court ruled Tuesday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's government had unconstitutionally altered a tax exemption.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that tax relief on the cost of travelling from home to work and back must be applied equally to all taxpayers.

In a major and unpopular budget-cutting move, the government had limited the exemption since the start of 2007 to people travelling to worksites 20 kilometres or more from home.

Guinea worm disease has been prevalent in African and Asian populations since antiquity. But according to Jimmy Carter, the disease may be on the verge of being eradicated. The former US president has pioneered a global effort to fight Dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm disease through his work with the Carter Center, a foundation he and his wife, Rosalind, established for fighting disease and promoting human rights.

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities turned over four sets of remains believed to be of US soldiers killed decades ago, at a repatriation ceremony Tuesday at Hanoi's international airport.

Dao Xuan Kinh, director of Vietnam's Office for Seeking Missing Persons, said they were believed to be of US pilots shot down over the country between 1965 and
1972.

"We found these four sets of remains in four different provinces in northern Vietnam," Kinh said.

The remains were put on a US Air Force aircraft for transport back to the United States and forensic testing.

The WHO has laid down strict guidelines on industrial chemical melamine. The move is prompted to prevent food contamination scandals similar to the one experienced by China this year. Before the discovery of melamine contamination , the FDA could not determine any safe level for the chemical in formula.

Munich - Bayern Munich Willy Sagnol faces the end of his football career over an Achilles tendon injury, the local tz daily reported on Tuesday.

Sagnol, 31, said that an operation scheduled for this week to ease the pain has been scrapped. Asked whether he has hope of returning to the pitch, he told the tz: "I don't know where to get it from."

The former France defender has not played since May and underwent surgery in August. He had initially hoped that another operation would put an end to his misery and allow him to return to the pitch.

Sagnol came to Munich in 2000 and has a contract until 2010.