Washing

Berlin -  Key members of the cast of the fantasy movie Inkheart attended its premiere Tuesday in Berlin as distributors prepared for worldwide release of the juvenile-fiction story.

The US lead, Brendan Fraser, was there, along with Eliza Hope Bennett, the British actress who plays his daughter in the film.

Director Iain Softley, also British, also took plaudits, but much of the attention at the cinema on the prestigious Potsdamer Platz went to Cornelia Funke, the Los Angeles-based author of the book the movie is based on.

Washington/Los Angeles  - Rescuers resumed their search Tuesday through the tangled rubble of a San Diego home and the F/A-18 fighter jet that crashed into it Monday, searching for a toddler missing since the accident.

The toddler's sibling, mother and grandmother were killed when the fighter jet appeared to lose all power as it attempted an emergency landing at the nearby Miramar Naval Air Station, after taking off on a routine training exercise from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The father was at work when the accident occurred.

New York  - The United States said Tuesday it was ready to strengthen the United Nations' capability to play a "central role" in fighting terrorism around the world.

The position taken by Washington's envoy to the UN, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, come days after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India's financial centre, that killed close to 200 people.

Washington  - The World Bank on Tuesday warned that a financial crisis striking the global economy could spark the worst worldwide recession since the Great Depression.

The global development bank slashed its previous estimates for global growth to 2.5 per cent in 2008 and 0.9 per cent in 2009, well below the 3-per-cent rate typically considered the dividing line between global growth and contraction.

Washington - Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff were arrested Tuesday on charges of trying to sell US president-elect Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat.

Court-appointed wiretaps last month intercepted Blagojevich conspiring to sell the Senate seat that Obama resigned on November 16, according to US Attorney Patrick J Fitzgerald. In return, as recorded in various conversations, he sought a cabinet post, an ambassadorship or a seat on a corporate board for his wife.