New Delhi, Nov 4 : The Co-Chairperson of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates lauded India’s initiatives on polio eradication here today.

He and his father William Gates Sr. called on Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss in New Delhi, today.

The senior members of the foundation met the Health Minister individually as well as in a Polio Round Table meeting.

During the meeting wide ranging issues from the health sector were discussed. Gates was apprised of strides made in key areas of Polio, National Rural Health Mission, Aids Control and Anti-tobacco efforts.

Nairobi, Goma  - It is a story that is as old as it is depressing: a rebel group more concerned with filling its pockets than the welfare of the people it says it is defending.

The rumbling conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which blew up into full-scale fighting for four days last week, conforms to this pattern.

Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, who last week routed the Congolese army and sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing in terror, says he is fighting to defend Tutsis from armed Hutu militia.

These Hutu militia fled to Congo after the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, when Hutu militants killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the space of a few months.

Baghdad - A series of seven deadly bomb attacks Tuesday left 13 dead and more than 40 injured across the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The deadliest of these attacks took place in the city's al-Mashatl neighbourhood in south-eastern Baghdad when a roadside bomb went off at a parking lot, killing seven and leaving 20 injured, a police source told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

The source added that several parked vehicles were damaged in the blast.

New Delhi  - There is excitement in the air in Thimphu, capital of the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan, as it prepares for the coronation of its fifth king - the 28-year-old Oxford-educated Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk on Thursday.

"The mood is festive. Everybody is getting ready. The lights are up as are the flags," Khandu-om Dorji, special programme officer in the Bhutanese prime minister's office said over telephone

The new king's father, Bhutan's much-loved monarch Jigme Singye Wangchuk, 53, shocked his people in December 2006, when he announced he was abdicating in favour of his son and Bhutan would become a democracy under a new, young king.

Tel Aviv - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned Tuesday against increased international pressure on Israel, saying the country would not take "shortcuts" in the peace process with the Palestinians.

"The world must support the process that is being conducted and not expect Israel to carry out shortcuts which would hurt its ability to safeguard its needs," Livni said ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and of Sunday's meeting of international peace mediators in Egypt.

Madrid/Paris - French police Tuesday detained eight suspected Basque separatists, French and Spanish media reported.

The arrests were made in connection with an investigation into bars linked with Batasuna, a party regarded as the political wing of the militant group ETA.

The bars were also suspected of financing French Basque radicals who have carried out attacks against restaurants and other establishments, Spanish police sources said.

Arrests were made in different locations in the French Basque region, according to Askatasuna, a group defending jailed ETA activists.

The detainees were taken to a police station in Bayonne. Police searched several addresses.