Kiev - Ukraine is a paradise for motorists addicted to chatting on mobile phones and driving at the same time, and the former Soviet republic's police face an uphill battle breaking the habit.

At a busy Kiev central city intersection on a sunny autumn afternoon, phone conversations audible through open windows displayed nothing less than epidemic violation of already-existing regulations banning phone calls behind the wheel. One in 10 drivers was on his or her mobile at any given moment, a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter estimated over a half hour of observation.

Washington - Democrat

Bangkok - Thailand has issued box jellyfish warnings for tourists visiting beach resorts on its southern coastlines where the killer invertebrates have recently been spotted, media reports said Tuesday.

The Marine and Coastal Resources Department has raised an alert for tourists that the highly venomous box jellyfish, not common in Thai waters, has been discovered off Phi Phi Island and Krabi province in southern Thailand, the Bangkok Post newspaper said.

Over the past six years, two deaths in Thailand have been attributed to box jellyfish, the first in 2002 at Phangan Island in the Gulf of Thailand and the most recent in April this year at Koh Lanta in Krabi on the Andaman Sea coast.

Washington - The Democrats have picked up four seats from Republicans in the Senate in elections on Tuesday and are poised to make significant gains to widening their majorities in both congressional houses, network projections showed.

The Democrats won two seats vacated by retiring Republicans in Virginia and New Mexico, while Democratic challengers ousted two of their Republicans opponents in New Hampshire and North Carolina.

Mexico City - Mexican Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino and a presidential adviser on security issues died when a small plane crashed in Mexico City, media reports said.

Mourino and Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a former deputy attorney general and a current adviser to the government of President Felipe Calderon, were returning to the capital from San Luis Potosi on the small plane that crashed Tuesday night, the Mexico City airport control tower confirmed.

The plane was carrying six people - a two-member crew and four passengers - when it crashed in a luxury office area of Mexico City.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said at the crash site that at least three people were killed and five were seriously injured.

Tokyo - The Tokyo stock market ended Wednesday morning's session higher on Wall Street's overnight gains and the US dollar's strength against the yen.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 257.07 points, or 2.82 per cent, to 9,371.67.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also up 41.18 points, or 4.52 per cent, at 951.88.