Meerut (U. P.), Nov 8 : At least five persons have been killed and two injured on Saturday in an explosion in an army waste dump in Ahmednagar area of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.

“Some ragpickers found an army mortar shell in the scrap and were trying to extract the metal when the blast occurred,” Senior Superintendent of Police Raghuveer Lal said.

He added, “While five persons died on the spot, two were critically injured.”

Lal further said that it was an “accidental” explosion and not related to any terror activists.

Wellington - Sir Roger Douglas, architect of sweeping free market changes that transformed the New Zealand economy two decades ago, was returned to parliament as part of the swing to the right in Saturday's election.

Douglas, now 70, was Finance Minister from 1984-88 in the Labour government that steered such radical reforms that a senior aide to Britain's Conservative Party said even its "Iron Lady" leader Margaret Thatcher would not dare to go so far.

Cairo/Gaza - Egypt is to announce Saturday that crucial reconciliation talks between the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah scheduled on Monday is to be postponed, al-Jazeera news network reported.

The decision came after Hamas has officially asked Cairo to postpone the talks which they see as "not yet ripe," the report said.

Egypt intends to inform the rest of Palestinian factions who were on their way to attend the meeting.

Earlier in the Gaza Strip, the local Ramattan news agency quoted Palestinian officials as sayiang Egypt had informed them that the dialogue meeting was being postponed.

Melbourne, Nov. 8 : Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has said that he was approached by a senior member of the India touring party during the acrimonious Sydney Test and asked to drop Australia''s ‘racist’ complaint against off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.

Harbhajan was alleged to have called all-rounder Andrew Symonds a “monkey” during the game and Ponting said that even before Harbhajan''s three-Test ban was handed down, it was clear the matter would not be dealt in a straightforward manner.

Hyderabad, Nov 8 : The two-day anti-terrorism Muslim conference, being held in Hyderabad urged on Saturday not to link terrorism with any religion.

The seminar to denounce terrorism is organised by Jamiat Ulmea-I-Hind, a Muslim organisation.

For years, bomb attacks in India have mostly been blamed on Islamist militants. Even attacks on mosques were often blamed on Islamists seeking to spark communal tensions between India''s majority Hindus and minority Muslims.

Gaza - Egypt has postponed a planned inter-Palestinian dialogue as several factions, mainly Hamas, have decided to boycott it, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

Ramattan, a local news agency, quoted Palestinian officials as saying that Egypt told them the dialogue, which was scheduled to start on Sunday, was being postponed.

Twelve Palestinian factions had been invited to the dialogue.

Meanwhile, a Hamas official said his movement decided to boycott the dialogue, blaming the rival Fatah movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.