Riga - There was mixed news on the Latvian economy Monday with official statistics recording a month-on-month rise in the consumer price index (CPI) inflation figures but a continuing downward trend year-on-year.

The Latvian Central Statistical Bureau said that compared to September 2008 inflation for October 2008 rose by 1.2 per cent to stand at 13.8 per cent year-on-year.

In September, Latvian annual inflation was 14.9 percent.

Riga - With sales of new cars in Latvia shrinking by more than a third in the first ten months of 2008 according to figures released Monday, it was left to carmakers at opposite ends of the price spectrum to report the strongest results.

Total sales of new cars in the Baltic country for January to October dropped to 10,434 from 17,239 in the same period last year, according to the Latvian Authorized Car Dealers Association.

With an economic downturn well underway, Latvians appear to be weaning themselves off their hitherto insatiable appetite for the latest automotive metal and are making do with older models and cheaper new cars.

In October, just 1,183 new cars were registered, the lowest monthly figure of the year.

Belgrade - Serbian police raided several locations Monday in search of the alleged war criminal Ratko Mladic, Belgrade media reported quoting sources.

Raids involving special police forces were reported from several locations in and around Valjevo, a town 70 kilometres south-west of Serbia.

The capture of Mladic and his extradition to the United Nations war crimes tribunal is the key remaining condition for Serbia's further progress toward European Union membership.

Rome, Dushanbe, Tajikistan - Fisheries production in the Central Asian and Caucasus republics has "plummeted dramatically" in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a UN food agency said Monday.

The crisis is topping the agenda when nine member nations of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began meeting in Tajikistan on Monday

The Rome-based FAO estimates that between 1989 and 2006 annual inland fisheries and aquaculture production in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan fell from between 60 to 72 per cent.

Tajikistan's production dropped 94 per cent, and Kyrgyzstan's 98 per cent, during the same period.

Athens - A hunger strike by more than 3,000 inmates at 21 prisons across Greece entered its second week on Monday to protest overcrowding and lengthy pre-trial detention periods.

More than 8,000 inmates, including Athens' top-security Korydallos prison and the Alikarnassos prison on the Mediterranean island of Crete, initially launched the strike on November 3.

By the second week 3,400 inmates continued the hunger strike to protest the poor conditions at detention centers across the country.

The detainees have been drinking juice and water but have refused solid food.

London - The Republic of Maldives, known to most as a holiday paradise in the Indian Ocean, will set aside a proportion of its annual tourism revenue to buy land as an insurance policy against climate change, its president-elect has said.

Mohamed Nasheed, due to be sworn in Tuesday, told Britain's Guardian newspaper that the chain of 1,200 islands and coral atolls 800 kilometres from the southern tip of India was likely to disappear if climate change continued at the current pace.

He said a gradual rise in sea levels caused by global warming means the 300,000 Maldives islanders may eventually be forced to resettle elsewhere.