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.

Mumbai, Nov. 4 : Security was tightened along the seashore and beaches in Mumbai where families of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were to celebrate the traditional Chatth Puja.

Usually celebrated a week after the Deepavali and spread over two to three days, this year it is being performed between November 3 and 5.

Patna, Nov 4 : In line with RJD president and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s call for resignation of elected representatives from Bihar against the anti-north Indian violence by MNS in Maharashtra, the party legislators and parliamentarians have started submitting their resignation letters to the party leadership.

Till today, 75 percent of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members, and nearly 35 of its 55 MLAs and eight of 15 MLCs have submitted their letters of resignation, Shyam Rajak, RJD’s spokesman, said.

Marseille - The Spanish port city of Barcelona is to be the seat of the headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said Tuesday in Marseille.

Agreement on what had been a bone of contention among the 43 members of the union was reached during the two-day meeting of foreign ministers and other representatives from European Union members and Mediterranean states.

The meeting was held in the French city of Marseille because France currently holds the 6-month rotating EU presidency.

Malta and the Tunisian capital Tunis had also been in the running to host the group's secretariat, which will bring status and jobs to the city.

Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Nov. 4 : About 7,600 couples tied the nuptial knot at the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Board of the famed Sri Venkateshwara Temple under the ‘Kalyanamasthu’ programme.

The Sri Venkateswara Temple, is popularly known as the Balaji Temple, and is one of the most frequented pilgrim centres by Hindus.

Of the 7600 weddings, 69 tied the nuptial knot at Tirupati.

Paris - Eleven world-renowned writers, including four Nobel Prize winners, have issued a ringing defence of Czech-born author Milan Kundera, accused of turning a Western spy in to the Communist state police in 1950, the daily Le Monde reported on Tuesday.

"This amounts to no more and no less than tarnishing the honour of one of the greatest living novelists on the most dubious grounds, to say the least," read a joint statement issued by the writers, including Nobel laureates JM Coetzee, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nadine Gordimer and Orhan Pamuk.

The signatories pointed out that, in addition to Kundera's denials, the testimony of a "respected scientist from Prague," Zdenek Pesat, has also cleared him.