Islamabad  - Four soldiers and eight insurgents were killed on Wednesday in continuing clashes between the military and Islamist militants in north-western Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said.

Government troops killed at least eight rebels in intense gunfights in the restive valley of Swat where security forces are battling followers of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah for over a year.

Clashes erupted when heavily-armed men targeted soldiers in Kabal area, a stronghold of Fazlullah.

Manila - Philippine economic managers on Wednesday cut domestic growth forecasts for this year and 2009 amid grim prospects of recession in some of the world's largest economies.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 was forecast to grow only between 4.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent, down from the government's earlier target of 5.5 per cent to 6.4 per cent.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said GDP growth next year was expected to average between 3.7 per cent and 4.7 per cent, from the previous forecast of 6.1 per cent to 7.1 per cent.

Taipei - A top US envoy in Taiwan Wednesday urged the island to fully allow imports of US beef products if the two sides are to further increase their trade relationship.

"Resuming imports of all US beef and beef products would further invigorate this important trading relationship," said Stephen Young, director of American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy in Taipei.

Algiers, Paris - As expected, lawmakers in both houses of the Algerian parliament on Wednesday voted by an overwhelming majority in favour of a constitutional amendment allowing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to serve a third term.

A total of 520 deputies voted yes on the five amendments presented - which would also severely limit the powers of the prime minister - while 21 voted against the measures and 8 abstained.

To be passed, the project had to receive the support of at least three quarters of the lawmakers sitting in both houses of the parliament.

As a result of the vote, the 71-year-old Bouteflika could take up his third five-year term in the spring of 2009, if his health allows him to stand again.

Washington, Nov. 12 : White House aides are reportedly fuming over leaked reports that President Bush had offered a political compromise in which he would support a bailout for the auto industry in exchange for Obama''s support of a free-trade deal with Colombia.

According to the president-elect''s aides, Obama told Bush that he favors appointing a czar to oversee any bailout for the nations'' domestic automakers. That appointee would have power to push for reforms in an ailing industry on the brink of bankruptcy.

Pristina - Kosovo on Wednesday again dismissed a revised plan for a European Union mission proposed by by Brussels and the United Nations, worrying that it would threaten its sovereignty over the restive Serb territory.

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told reporters Pristina has extended a "warm welcome and invitation" to the EU mission, the Eulex, but only if it deploys as planned, "in the entire territory of Kosovo."