In what is seen as a major embarrassment for the Kremlin, which has repeatedly promised to tighten safety checks after a number of marine accidents in recent years, an accident occurred on the Nerpa, an Akula II-class attack submarine, due to a gas leak that killed 20 people .
According to the experts, the fatalities aboard the submarine in the Sea of Japan, were the result of Freon gas spewing into the craft after a malfunction in its fire extinguishing system.
After breaking the reign of the Helen Clarke's labour party for the past nine years, John Key, PM-elect of New Zealand, is in a hurry to form the Government to fight the Global Economic Crisis. Key's Party won 59 seats in the 122-seat parliament according to a preliminary count of Saturday's election.
The Category 4 Hurricane Paloma, which created havoc on the Cuban Coast, weakened into a tropical depression in less than a day. Hurricane Paloma had hit Cuba with strong winds exceeding 240 kmph and a powerful sea surge sent waves almost a mile (11/2kilometers) inland as the storm ravaged Santa Cruz del Sur. 
The much applauded first unmanned lunar mission of India Chandrayaan-1, has entered the lunar orbit and will spend the next two years mapping the moon's terrain. This mission has put India in league with the five great nations in space exploration sector, namely US, Russia, Japan and China. The success of the current mission has encouraged scientists to compete with China and Japan to put a man on the Moon by 2025.
Amsterdam - The sexual morals of Dutch youth has gone astray, the country's youth and family affairs minister was on Monday quoted as saying in a report by the daily Algemeen Dagblad.
Bonn, Germany - German mail delivery giant Deutsche Post AG said Monday it was slashing the workforce at its US DHL operations by a further 9,500 after forecasting the express delivery offshoot would post a full-year 1.5 billion dollars loss.
