Los Angeles - US author M

London - The husband of British retro-soul singer Amy Winehouse was released from jail Wednesday and immediately checked into a drug rehabilitation clinic, the Press Association reported.

Blake Fielder-Civil, 26, was sentenced for helping to beat up a pub landlord and jailed for 27 months by a court in London three months ago. He had already spent nine months in jail on remand when he was sentenced.

His admission to a rehabilitation clinic was part of the terms of his release, the report said.

Taipei - Hundreds of anti-China protesters clashed with riot police Wednesday evening when the protesters tried to prevent Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin from leaving a Taipei hotel where he was attending a banquet.

The banquet at the Regent Hotel ended at 8:30 pm (1330 GMT), but the siege continued until after midnight, despite riot police's effort to disperse the protesters.

Brasilia  - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday described Democratic candidate Barack Obama's victory as an "extraordinary event" and asked the US president-elect to lift the decades-old embargo on communist Cuba.

Lula said Obama's historic rise underlined the democratic aspects of US society. "It could only happen in a democratic regime in which society expresses itself."

Moscow - President Dmitry Medvedev nominally said Wednesday he hoped for improved ties with the new US president, but also that Russia would fight US missile defence plans by deploying missiles in its European enclave of Kaliningrad.

In his first state-of-the-nation speech since taking office in May, Medvedev did not mention president-elect Barack Obama by name and lashed out at the United States' seeming to challenge its policy on all fronts.

Berlin - Germany's government on Wednesday approved an anti- recession package of tax cuts and grants that supporters predict will secure up to 1 million jobs over the next two years.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said the move showed her coalition could beat the economic problems expected in the near future.

"We are going to build a bridge toward the possibility that it will get better again in 2010," she said.