Washington  - Kuwaiti-born Sami Al-Arian, a one-time computer engineering professor, was released from jail just hours ahead of a court deadline for US officials to explain why immigration officials still wanted him held, media reports said Wednesday.

Al-Arian, 50, had fully served a five-year sentence that resulted from a plea bargain to charges of conspiring to aid an Islamic group by helping with immigration benefits for a member of the group.

Beirut  - A Belgian peacekeeper with the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) died Wednesday while dismantling an unexploded bomb, Lebanese security sources said.

Another Belgian was injured in the incident near Aitaroun in southern Lebanon, the sources said.

UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane confirmed the incident but refused to give the nationality of the peacekeeper until his family has been informed.

"An investigation is under way," she said.

There are 370 Belgians in the 15,000-strong UNIFIL force, which was set up in 1978 to help the Lebanese army patrol a border zone in the south under a UN Security Council mandate.

Washington/Mexico City  - At least 19 deaths in Haiti were blamed on the effects of Tropical Storm Hanna, while thousands of people in the Dominican Republic sought refuge Wednesday from the third storm in just weeks.

In Haiti, people climbed to the rooftops of their homes to remain safe in the face of flooding caused by Hanna. Ten people drowned in the central coastal city of Gonaives alone, said the news agency Haiti Press.

Haitian President Rene Preval requested international after the catastrophe in the city of 300,000 people.

In the Dominican Republic, schools remained closed, and the authorities of the country that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti declared the maximum alert for 13 provinces.

Athens  - A US arts collector returned a priceless artefact to Greece on Wednesday as the country continues its long battle for other treasures such as the Elgin Marbles to return to their rightful home.

Greece received a fourth century BC bronze vase and remains of a marble tombstone depicting a young warrior from US art collector Shelby White barely a year after it launched a campaign for their return, relying on evidence they were smuggled out of the country.

The archaeological museum in Greece said the top part of the tombstone, which they had in their possession, could finally be reunited with the lower part after it was smuggled out of Greece during the 1960s.

London- The behaviour of rival gangs of birds is often akin to that of football fans chanting battle-songs and commiserating with each other after losing a contest, British scientists have found.

Researchers examining the behaviour of the South African Green Woodhoopoe found the birds "engaged in raucous vocal displays akin to opposing football supporters chanting at one another," it was reported Wednesday.

Coimbatore/Tamil Nadu/Mumbai/Pune, Sept 3 : Devotees thronged a temple in Coimbatore, to offer prayers to Lord Ganesha on the occasion of ''Ganesh Chaturthi'', the ten-day long annual festival, which began on Wednesday.

The festival, which marks the birth anniversary of lord Ganesha, is celebrated with great fanfare across the country.

Hundreds of devotees thronged the temple in Coimbatore today, to offer prayers on the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi, in front of the idol, which is claimed by the temple priests to be the biggest in Asia.