Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that US president-elect Barack Obama should change the American approach towards nations in general and Iran in particular.

"The (Obama slogan of) change should not just be superficial. What is important is change in approach towards nations," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Sari, northern Iran, carried by the Khabar news network.

Ahmadinejad was the first Iranian president since the 1979 Islamic revolution to send a congratulation message to his American counterpart on his success in the presidential race.

Tehran - Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) tested a new ground-to-ground missile, state news agency IRNA reported Wednesday.

IRNA quoted Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najar as saying that the new generation of the Sejil-type missiles was successfully tested.

The new missile burns combined solid fuel and is supposed to be just preventive, the minister said without giving any details on time and venue of the test nor the range of the missile.

Singapore - The Singapore government will not bail out a multi-billion-dollar casino project by financially troubled Las Vegas Sands, the Channel News Asia (CNA) reported Wednesday.

But the government is considering reviewing the timeline of the Marina Bay Integrated Resort project, which is scheduled to be completed next year, reported CNA, citing Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran.

Nevertheless, Iswaran has not ruled out involvement in the project by government-linked companies, saying these were commercial entities and it depended on their business sense.

Munich - Hypo Real Estate, the German finance company which nearly collapsed in September, reported a third quarter pre-tax loss of 3.1 billion euros (3.8 billion dollars) on Wednesday.

The deficit, which was greater than analysts expected, was due mainly to 2.5 billion euros in writedowns for its Dublin-based subsidiary Depfa, the company said in a statement.

The loss came after a profit of 237 million euros for the same period of 2007.

Paris - Ten people arrested for a recent series of attacks on French railway lines are said to belong to a small left-wing extremist group intent on carrying out acts of disruption, French media reported on Wednesday.

Five of the 10 suspects - including the alleged leader of the group, a 34-year-old names Julien - were living in a small village in the department, or region, of Correze in central France when they were taken into custody early Tuesday. Others were arrested in Paris and Rouen.

Baghdad - The death toll from a car-bomb in a square in central Baghdad rose to nine on Wednesday, al-Arabiya TV reported.

The explosion, which took place in Nasr Square, also injured 12 passers-by.

In north-eastern Baghdad, nine civilians were injured, including two women, when a bomb struck their minibus in Shab district, a police source told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.