Rome  - Syria Thursday marked another step in its improving relations with the West by signing an agreement with Italy aimed at boosting political, economic and cultural ties.

"Co-operation between Italy and Syria has resumed through intense dialogue," Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, said at a joint news conference in Rome with Syrian counterpart, Wallid Moallem.

Tel Aviv  - One of Israel's most emotionally-charged and complex murder investigations appeared closer to a solution Thursday when police divers retrieved from a river a suitcase thought to hold the remains of a four-year old girl missing since May.

Divers have been searching the Yarkon river, on Tel Aviv's northern outskirts, for the body Rose Pizem since the main suspect in the case, her grandfather Ronny Ron, told police he had thrown the body there.

The red suitcase was found about 500 to 600 metres from where Ron said he had thrown it into the river, and contains a small skull, bones and shred of clothing.

"It looks like what we've been searching for," one of the divers told Israel Radio.

Hanoi - A court in Hanoi sentenced three men to death for trafficking heroin, a criminal court official said Thursday.

London, Sep 11 : Scientists believe that Jamaican Usain Bolt could have run 9.55sec at the Beijing Olympics if he had not started celebrating before the finish line.

Bolt set a world record of 9.69 in winning the 100metre, but slowed down in the last 10metre, slapping his chest as he crossed the line.

Australia’s national sprint coach Paul Hallam agrees with physicists from the University of Oslo, Norway, who through a series of calculations have come up with the figure of 9.55.

New Delhi, Sept 11 : With the Indo-US nuclear deal text being sent to the American Congress for a final nod, India on Thursday began preliminary discussions with U. S. companies for nuclear trade.

In a statement, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said: "Following the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) statement which enables civil nuclear cooperation by NSG members with India, The Government is taking steps to realise commercial cooperation with foreign partners in the field."

New York, Sept. 11: Only a third of Americans think that another terrorist attack on the United States is likely, but a majority of the country’s citizens also believe that the United States is prepared for such an attack should it occur. According to a CBS poll, 52 percent of those polled said they thought the U. S. was adequately prepared, compared to 39 percent who said the U. S. was not prepared.

This is the first time since March 2003 - right after the U. S. invasion of Iraq - that a majority held that opinion.