Harare- President Robert Mugabe's regime has promised it will repay an international donor organization 6.5 million US dollars that was meant for the country's anti-malaria campaign but which has mysteriously disappeared.

The money was part of a 103-million-dollar grant from the Geneva- based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, 28.5 million dollars of which was destined to the Health Ministry for prevention and treatment of malaria, the often fatal mosquito-borne disease that affects nearly 3 million Zimbabweans.

Manila  - At least nine people were killed when a passenger motorboat capsized amid bad weather in the central Philippines on Thursday, local officials said.

It was the second motorboat to sink in the Philippines in three days.

The boat was battered by strong waves spawned by a tropical depression while on its way to an island off Concepcion town in Iloilo province, 450 kilometres south-east of Manila.

New Delhi, Nov. 6 : A Tibetan delegation that visted China for autonomy-related talks between October 30 and November 5, today briefed the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, about the outcome of the deliberations.

In a statement issued here, Special Envoy Kasur Lodi Gyari, said that the Eighth Round of Tibetan-Chinese discussions was a follow up on the discussions held during the seventh round in July this year.

Sofia - Some 3,000 Bulgarian farmers on Thursday blocked several key highways in protest against the government's agricultural policy, the national radio said.

Grain producers, joining the months-long protest of dairy farmers, are demanding subsidies which they claim the state owes them and are demanding more money than what is planned in the 2009 draft budget.

They also are demanding the resignation of Agriculture Minister Valeriy Cvetanov, saying he did not meet promises he made.

Freiburg, Germany - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday he does not expect a radical change in US climate policy after Barack Obama takes over as president.

"America as a whole is not ready for the contribution it needs to make in order to lessen the negative affects of global warming," Steinmeier said.

Kiev- Ukraine's political leadership on Thursday was hopeful a 16.4-billion-dollar International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan would improve the former Soviet republic's current bleak economic outlook - an opinion shared neither by markets nor independent experts.

"This is good news, the reaction of investors is positive," said President Viktor Yushchenko at a meeting with top bank managers. "This (the IMF loan) is a signal for world society to increase its level of trust towards our country."