Quota protesters to halt strike
An Indian minority community demanding job quota called off its violent campaign yesterday after signing an agreement with authorities community leaders and officials said. At least 40 people have been killed since the Gujjars who are demanding access to state jobs and college quotas began their protests last month in the western state of Rajasthan.

JAIPUR - Reuters

Oklahoma executes convicted killer

Oklahoma put a convicted killer to death by lethal injection on Tuesday becoming the sixth U.S. state to resume executions since the Supreme Court lifted a temporary moratorium on capital punishment in April. Terry Short 47 was condemned in 1997 for the death of Ken Yamamoto a Japanese exchange student. Yamamoto had been an inadvertent victim of Short's rage.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Reuters

Briton faces 30 years for coup plot

Prosecutors called Tuesday for a 30-year prison sentence for British mercenary Simon Mann as he went on trial in Equatorial Guinea for plotting to oust the president in a 2004 coup attempt. The chief prosecutor told the court said Mann was the mastermind of a group of people who "wanted to topple the legal government" of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

MALABO - Agence France-Presse

Italian police arrest 28 Tamils

Italian police arrested 28 Sri Lankan Tamils yesterday on charges of aiding and abetting the outlawed Tamil Tigers group fighting a separatist insurgency against the government in Colombo. Some 200 police were involved in the operation which saw raids across the country from Naples in the south to Bologna in the north and also on the island of Sicily an official said.

ROME - Agence France-Presse

Ailing Castro makes TV appearances

Cuban television has showed the first images of Fidel Castro in more than five months. The silent video shows the ailing revolutionary chatting in a garden with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The 81-year-old Castro looked thinner and his hair and beard appeared much whiter in the new video. But he nevertheless looked vigorous and animated.

HAVANA - The Associated Press

Clashes in Guinea kill 3

At least three police officers died in Guinea Tuesday and dozens more were wounded after soldiers exchanged gunfire with striking policemen in an apparent revenge attack. The fighting marks an unprecedented low point in the relations between the security forces which have always been a pillar for the regime of Guinea's strongman Lansana Conte.

CONAKRY - Agence France-Presse