Moscow  - Approval of a Kremlin bill to extend the presidential term from four to six years will be fast-tracked by the legislature and enacted by Friday, Russia's parliamentary committee on constitutional legislation said Wednesday.

Medvedev announced he was seeking the constitutional amendment in his first state-of-the-nation address last week.

Johannesburg - The body of South African singer and anti-apartheid icon, Miriam Makeba, arrived back in her native Johannesburg Wednesday, three days after her death in Italy.

Makeba, 76, who was known affectionately as Mama Africa, suffered a heart attack shortly after a performance on Sunday evening in southern Italy in support of a campaign against organized crime.

Family members, fellow musicians and Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan were at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to receive her remains.

Baghdad  - A car-bomb attack in a

Washington, Nov 12: US President George Bush has granted visa-free travel to the citizens of seven countries, namely Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, South Korea, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, to his country.

The President said that the US enjoyed “good, tight relations and co-operation” with the countries exempted.

“These close friends of America told me that it was unfair their people had to jump through bureaucratic hoops that other allies can walk around,” the Daily Times quoted Bush as saying while announcing the decision.

Amsterdam - Dutch bank and insurance giant ING Group suffered a loss of 478 million euros (609.93 million dollars) in the third quarter of 2008, the firm's first-ever quarterly loss, ING reported on Wednesday.

The quarterly report said the loss was partly the result of write-downs of more than 1.5 billion euros on ING's various assets, including those related to the US real-estate market.

In the third quarter of 2007, ING posted a net profit of 2.3 billion euros.

Wednesday's quarterly report did not come as a surprise.