Brussels - Lithuania and Poland should bow to the majority of European Union member states and approve the immediate relaunch of talks on a strategic deal with Russia, despite their own security concerns, top EU officials warned Friday.

The decision to restart talks "may not be 100 per cent what your feelings are, but it's better for you to be together with all the other (EU) states in expressing a view rather than having some countries making agreements with Russia and others not," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

Tallinn - There was mixed news on the Estonian economy Friday with official statistics showing that inflation is falling, while a ratings agency downgraded the Baltic nation's outlook.

According to data released by Statistics Estonia, the percentage change of the consumer price index (CPI) in October 2008 was 9.8 per cent year-on-year, down from 10.5 per cent in September.

Moscow - General Motors, the world's largest automaker, on Friday opened a 300-million-dollar factory, its first fully-owned venture in Russia.

GM joins five other foreign carmakers with plants in the outskirts of St Petersburg, an area coming to be known as the new Detroit of the automotive industry, as firms hope to compensate for slumping sales in Europe and North America.

Washington - Unemployment in the United States rose to 6.5 per cent in October, after another 240,000 jobs were lost in a worsening sign for the economy, the US Labour Department reported Friday.

The jobless rate jumped from 6.1 per cent in the previous two months, and marked an increase of 1.7 per cent, or 2.8 million fewer jobs, over the last year. The total number of US unemployed now stands at 10.1 million, the department said.

"Today, we received monthly job report numbers that reflect the difficult challenges confronting our economy," President George W Bush said in a statement.

Beirut - Military police with the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon arrested two terrorist suspects in the northern Lebanese refugee camp of Beddawi following a clash inside the chantytown, Palestinian sources said Friday.

According to the sources the two suspects were arrested after a major clash and were identified as Nader al-Ali and Khaled Jaber, who are accused of being members of a terrorist ring headed by wanted Lebanese citizen Abdul Ghani Jawhar.

Munich - German sports car manufacturer Porsche announced a huge jump in profits for the 2007/2008 financial year on Friday as Daimler AG and BMW reported a major slump in October sales.

Group profit before taxes in the 12 months up to the end of July soared to 8.57 billion euros (11.2 billion dollars) from 5.85 billion euros the previous year, Porsche said in a statement.