Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy convinced Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin not to attack the Georgian capital Tbilisi and overthrow Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili this summer, the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur reported on Thursday.

Citing Sarkozy's foreign policy advisor, Jean-David Levitte, the magazine said that the incident occurred at the Kremlin on August 12, when Sarkozy - as president of the European Union - was trying to negotiate an end to the Russia-Georgia conflict.

Taipei - Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian has gone on a hunger strike to protest against his detention over a corruption probe, as Taiwan's High Court upheld a seven-year prison sentence against his son-in-law, officials said Thursday.

"The ex-president has stopped eating since he was placed under custody at the Taipei Penitentiary Wednesday to show his protest against the authorities for political persecution," said his lawyer Cheng Wen-lung.

He said Chen did drink water and his health condition was fine so far.

Budapest  - Hungary plans a 1.4-trillion-forint (6.5-billion-dollar) stimulus package to boost its ailing economy, the government said Thursday, after international lenders last month staved off the ex-communist nation's financial collapse.

The proposal is designed to ease Hungary's severe credit crunch, generate more than 9 billion dollars in new investment and create 20,000 new jobs, Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai told members of parliament in Budapest.

Langenfeld - German police said Thursday they had arrested an unassuming Italian suspected of working as a hired killer for an organized-crime syndicate in the Italian province of Apulia.

The unarmed man had no time to resist when he was suddenly handcuffed Wednesday evening as he returned home from his regular job as a tradesman in an eastern suburb of Dusseldorf.

The suspect, 46, is accused by a magistrate in Bari, Italy of attempting to murder two persons with a pump-action shotgun in 2000 on a street in Manfredonia, Italy at the orders of the syndicate. Both were wounded, but survived the attack

Chennai, Nov 13 : Three people were seriously injured as two rival groups of students clashed in Chennai on Wednesday evening.

A group of students wielding iron rods and sticks entered the campus of Ambedkar Law College in the city, and beat up some students coming out after taking their examination.

The students were brutally beaten up by the group inside the college campus.

Refuting allegations of being mute spectators to the incident, police said that they did not have permission to enter the college premises.