Jerusalem - High-tech entrepreneur Nir Barkat, who billed himself as the "secular candidate," was elected mayor of Jerusalem, results from Tuesday's municipal elections, announced early Wednesday, showed.

Barkat won 52 per cent of the vote, compared to 43 per cent for ultra-Orthodox politician Meir Porush, following tallies from all 707 polling stations in the city.

Controversial Russian-born billionaire Arkady Gaydamak garnered only 3.6 per cent of the votes, in part because East Jerusalem Palestinians, whom he especially canvassed in his campaign, largely boycotted the election.

Frankfurt - Germany's powerful IG Metall trade union reached a pay deal with employers on Wednesday, averting a potentially damaging nationwide strike in the engineering and electrical sectors.

Some 3.6 million workers will receive a two-stage increase totalling 4.2 per cent under the terms of the agreement reached after marathon talks lasting 23 hours.

The union staged a week of industrial action to lend force to its original demand of 8 per cent. It also threatened an all-out strike if employers did not budge from their original offer of 2.1 per cent.

Berlin - The Berlin Academy for the Arts plans to offer a speaking engagement to Roberto Saviano, the Italian author who is in hiding for fear of retribution by organized crime, an official said Wednesday.

Klaus Staeck, the academy president, said he had offered a year ago to engage Saviano to speak at a seminar on the Mafia, but the author had ruled he could not travel safely. Staeck said he would try again to book him.

Shanghai - World number one tennis player Rafael Nadal is suffering from serious physical problems, the president of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), Francesco Ricci Bitti, said on Wednesday.

"Nadal has a very serious problem," Ricci Bitti told a small group of media, including Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, at the Masters Cup tournament in Shanghai.

Dhaka- A Bangladeshi court on Wednesday granted bail to three former ministers of Bangladesh's predecessor government run by a Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led alliance, two days after their detention in a graft case, court officials said.

Brussels - The European Commission on Wednesday proposed tough rules designed to impr