Islamabad  - Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta confirmed for the first time Wednesday that his government had held talks with Taliban representatives in Saudi Arabia.

But he warned that the reconciliation process would move ahead only if militants were "ready to put down their weapons," accept the Afghan constitution and "live a peaceful life."

"But we are at the beginning of the process," he told reporters in Islamabad after a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi. He declined to give any details of the talks.

Baghdad  - Five people were killed and nine injured in attacks in Mosul and Baghdad Wednesday.

In western Mosul, four civilians were killed and three injured in a car bomb explosion, a police source said. He told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that the explosion occurred in the al-Thawra neighborhood.

Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh, lies 405 kilometres north of Baghdad.

New Delhi  - At least 24 people including 23 women were drowned when an overcrowded boat capsized in India's eastern state of Bihar on Wednesday, police said.

The boat ferrying 28 agricultural workers capsized on a small river in Khagaria district located over 200 kilometres east of state capital Patna.

Brussels - The United States formally joined the European Union's rule-of-law mission (EULEX) in Kosovo on Wednesday by offering 80 police officers and "up to" eight judges and prosecutors to the 3,000-strong operation, officials said.

"The European Union and the United States have a common desire to work together to support the development of Kosovo's democratic standards," a joint statement issued at a signing ceremony in Brussels read.

Vienna  - The Vienna Stock Exchange AG is expanding its reach in Central and Eastern Europe, as it has agreed to take over a majority of the Prague Stock Exchange.

"We agreed on the general terms of sale," Beatrix Exinger, spokeswoman of the Vienna bourse, was quoted by Austrian news agency APA on Wednesday.

The Prague stock exchange is valued at between 200 million and 400 million euros (268 million to 537 million dollars), but Exinger said the sale price was still to be negotiated.

Vienna could take over up to 90 per cent of the Prague exchange, according to Czech media reports.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes an expansion of the Group of Eight (G8) to embrace nations such as India and China, her spokesman said Wednesday in Berlin.

"She doesn't see an institutional expansion into a G9, a G12, a G15 and so on as the philosopher's stone," said deputy government spokesman Thomas Steg.