Brussels  - NATO governments have approved the deployment of a new counter-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia consisting of seven vessels, alliance officials said Wednesday.

"NATO ambassadors have now approved the operational plan for the deployment of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 to conduct counter- piracy operations off the coast of Somalia," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai.

Washington  - The United States will push for aggressive action to halt the global economic slide at an international financial summit next month, President Barack Obama said Wednesday, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the global economy and again warning against protectionist moves.

Ahead of April's Group of 20 (G20) gathering of the world's leading economies, Obama acknowledged that developing countries were being "hard hit" by the fallout from an economic crisis that largely began in the United States.

Brussels  - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Wednesday described the shooting spree in a school in south-west Germany that has left at least 15 people dead as a "senseless" act of violence.

"We are appalled and saddened by the senseless violence that cut short so many lives and injured and traumatised many others," the head of the European Union's executive arm said in a statement.

Islamabad - Pakistani police on Wednesday arrested hundreds of opposition activists and anti-government lawyers to forestall this week's planned cross-country protest march, which could send the year-old government into a tailspin, officials said.

Most of the arrests were made in the eastern province of Punjab, the power centre of popular opposition leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The arrests came after an overnight ban on public gatherings in Punjab and were followed by a similar ban in the southern Sindh province.

Harare  - Ministers from several African governments and thousands of Zimbabweans joined Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai at the burial of his wife Susan in her home district of Buhera on Wednesday, five days after her death in a car crash.

At least 5,000 people looked on as Tsvangirai's wife of 31 years was laid to rest next to the couple's modest rural home in the little village of Humanikwa, south-west of Harare.

Kiev  - Ukraine's government has met International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands by making politically-painful changes to monetary and fiscal law, a move opening the way for more emergency credits, a senior official said Wednesday.

Ukraine's cabinet in morning a morning session passed resolutions drastically limiting where future IMF loans to Ukraine might be spent, among other Fund pre-conditions for further loans, said Vice Minister Hryhory Nemyra, according to an Interfax news agency report.