Vatican City - The Vatican's top health issues official reiterated Tuesday the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to embryonic stem cell research - a field of study supported by US president-elect Barack Obama.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said stem cells taken from human embryos and involving the destruction of the embryos, "served no purpose with no health cure to date" resulting from such scientific research.

The Church instead championed research on adult stem cells that, Barragan said, have been shown to have "positive value."

Damascus - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebary arrived in Damascus on Tuesday in the first visit by an Iraqi official since the US cross-border attack on the Syrian village of Abu Kamal in late October.

The visit comes as "a good will gesture" from the Iraqi government to show its concern to maintain brotherly relations with Syria, Ahmad al-Saad, the press attache of the Iraqi embassy in Damascus told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Copenhagen - The recent bankruptcy of low-cost carrier Sterling Airlines has cost Copenhagen's Kastrup airport an estimated 50 million kroner (8.6 million dollars), the airport said Tuesday.

Danish-based Sterling Airlines filed for bankruptcy on October 29, citing it had been impacted by the global financial recession and "significant fuel cost increases."

Ankara - Four men who kidnapped an Assyrian-Christian priest in south-east Turkey last year were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on Tuesday by a court in the city of Diyarbakir, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.

Father Daniel Savci (56) was taken hostage in November 2007 by the four men who stopped his car as he was travelling to the Mor Yakup Monastery, in a village near the town of Midyat in south-eastern Turkey's Mardin province.

In evidence read to the court, Savci said that he had been handcuffed and a hood was placed over his head when he was kidnapped.

Bhopal, Nov 11 : Madhya Pradesh Tourism Minister Tukoji Rao has been arrested for allegedly misbehaving with a Returning Officer.

He was later sent to judicial custody till November 24. The Collector of Devas has also been transferred in connection with the incident.

The BJP candidate and royal scion of Dewas, Phool Chand Verma was also arrested and jailed in connection with the incident last Saturday.

Gaza City - The radical Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has claimed to have had contacts with advisors