Hong Kong - Pilots on Hong Kong's second biggest airline have been stripped of their captain's hats in a move some cockpit crew Saturday warned might strip them of their professional prestige.

Other pilots at Dragonair, however, said they were delighted at not having the wear the peaked hats which they complained made them "look like South American generals."

Cotabato City, Philippines - Three soldiers were wounded in a clash with Muslim secessionist rebels in the southern Philippines, a regional army spokesman said Saturday.

Colonel Julieto Ando said he received reports that 19 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels were also killed in the fighting Friday in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province, 960 kilometres south of Manila.

Sydney - A Democrat in the White House after next week's presidential election could usher in a round of protectionism that would do further damage to the world economy, media baron Rupert Murdoch warned Saturday.

The chairman and chief executive of US-based News Corp said imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports could be the blue touch paper for a trade war.

Berlin - Berlin is locked in art fever, with four powerful exhibitions going ahead including work by Jeff Koons and Paul Klee.

At the Mies van der Rohe-designed New National Gallery, US contemporary artist Koons is parading a glittering array of huge sculptures and paintings.

On a lower floor is a superb selection of work by the late German expressionist painter Klee, garnered from both private and international collections.

Bremen - The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) is worried about God's creation. At its synod in the northern city of Bremen from Sunday to Wednesday, its most important meeting of the year, the main theme will be global warming and dwindling water resources.

The EKD, a federation of 23 regional churches - Lutheran, Reformed and United - is expected to urge political and business leaders to get serious about environmental protection before it is too late.

Also on the agenda will be structural reforms that the Church feels it must make as its funds and membership shrink.

Washington - Studs Terkel, the writer, radio-TV personality and social activist who, like Democratic presidential candidate, made Chicago his hometown, was dead at age 96, the Chicago Tribune reported late Friday.

He died after his health declined after a fall several weeks ago at home, the newspaper said.

"Studs Terkel was part of a great Chicago literary tradition that stretched from Theodore Dreiser to Richard Wright to Nelson Algren to Mike Royko," Mayor Richard M Daley was quoted as saying in a statement.