Bangkok - Laos will play host to the 17th annual Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum in Vientiane on January 11 to 15, officials confirmed Thursday.

"We are expecting over 300 delegates from 17 countries," said Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy, in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Laos, a communist country since 1975, is under a one-party system. The next general election will be in 2010, in conjunction with the 9th Party Congress of the Lao Communist Party.

Singapore - French bank BNP Paribas has predicted a faster Asian economic recovery next year, citing aggressive government spending and region-wide interest rate cuts, according to a news report Thursday.

The scale of the global policy response, monetary and fiscal, should ensure the recovery is more V-shaped, indicating a steep rise after a decline, than a slower, U-shaped recovery, said BNP Paribas economist Richard Iley.

Manila - A new multilateral initiative was launched Tuesday to boost food security in South Asia by substantially increasing crop yields and income of millions of farmers in the region, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) said.

According to the Philippines-based IRRI, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) aims to produce an additional 5 million tons of grain annually and increase the income of about 6 million farmers by at least 350 dollars.

Washington, December 20 : A team of political scientists have found that Asian Americans are less attached to their racial identity than black Americans, confirming that minority politics in the U. S. is more complex than generally thought.

The research team-comprising Jane Junn from Rutgers University and Natalie Masuoka from Tufts University-say that understanding the increasingly multicultural nature of the U. S. requires perspectives that incorporate, but go beyond, the black historical experience.

Kabul - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who was scheduled Friday to visit Kabul for the first time for talks with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, has canceled his trip because of bad weather, the Afghan presidential palace said.

"Due to bad weather in Kabul and low visibility at the airport, President Zardari cancelled his trip to Kabul today," Simak Herawi, a presidential palace spokesman said.

New Delhi - Bilateral talks between India and Pakistan that began in 2004 have been put on hold in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, news reports said Wednesday.

"I do admit there is a pause in the composite dialogue process because of the attacks on Mumbai," Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted as saying by the Times of India newspaper.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday in Srinagar, capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, the minister said, "We are now waiting to see whether the assurances they have given us are taken to their logical conclusion."