Kiev - Ukraine's parliament must approve a 16.5-billion- dollar assistance package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or the former Soviet republic will face default, the country's national bank head said Tuesday.

Volodymyr Stelmakh, chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), said Kiev desperately needs the low-cost loan, as without it the NBU "almost certainly" would be unable to honour Ukraine's foreign debts.

Stelmakh's statement, made at a Kiev press conference, was Ukraine's clearest warning yet that the world financial crisis had left the country short of cash and on the edge of default on bonds sold in international markets.

Baghdad - Three children were killed on Wednesday and another 14 people were injured when al-Qaeda attacked a home in the restive city of Baquba, reported the Voices of Iraq VOI news agency.

The deceased were all children of Abdel Karim, a leader of the Awakening Council movement, which is a collection of Sunni units that collaborate with the United States to fight militants from the al- Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq.

Moscow  - Russia's lower house of parliament on Wednesday ratified friendship treaties with South Ossetia, over which Russia fought a war with Georgia, and Georgia's other breakaway region of Abkhazia.

The treaties provide for Moscow to base thousands of troops in the two separatist regions, which it recognized as independent states after the five-day war in August.

Lawmakers in the State Duma unanimously voted in favour of the accords formalizing diplomatic, business and military relations with the regions.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Wednesday that Moscow planned to station 3,800 troops in each area to protect against a Georgian attack.

London - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Wednesday suspended two top entertainers in a spiralling row over the broadcasting of lewd comments left on the answer phone of veteran Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

Programmes by Jonathan Ross, host of a popular Friday evening TV chat show, and Russell Brand, a comedian, will be taken off air until the BBC has completed its investigations into prank calls they made on the BBC 2 radio channel.

Berlin - Germany's cabinet agreed Wednesday to limit the country's future contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom, the US-led anti-terrorism campaign, to 800 personnel, the Defence Ministry said.

All the personnel are sailors and naval aviators posted to the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean Sea.

The authorization, expected to be passed November 13 by the German parliament, will no longer extend to a contingent of German commandoes assigned to Afghanistan.