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Federer, Roddick, Kuznetsova reach French Open fourth round PARIS: World number one Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and Svetlana Kuznetsova reached fourth round in the French Open Tennis tournament here on Sat urday.In the third round of the tournament, Roger Federer needed four sets to reach the last 16 as he came through against home favourite Paul-Henri Mathieu 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4. Andy Roddick and German veteran Tommy Haas also made it through, both against French opponents, while top South American hope Juan Martin del Potro scored a comfortable 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 win over Igor Andreev of Russia.Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber shocked Novak Djokovic beating him 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to stage an upset in the tournament.Kohlschreiber will play Tommy Robredo for a place in the quarter-finals after the Spaniard's 4-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-0 over Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina In women’s event, seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia beat Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-1, 6-3 while Samantha Stosur of Austr...

NEW DELHI: Late Jagjivan Ram at a time being the senior most All India Congress party leader couldn’t reach to the top slot premiership due to his low cast antecedent, but his daughter, Meira Kumar is about to get the honour of the first woman Speaker of Lok Sabha.Senior Congress Member of Parliament Meira Kumar has emerged the frontrunner for Lok Sabha Speaker. If elected, she will be the first woman Speaker of the House. The election for the prestigious constitutional post is to be held on June 3.The decision was taken at a Congress Core Group meeting held Saturday with Sonia Gandhi in chair to elect woman member, Meira Kumar as Speaker.Ms. Kumar, 64 a five-time MP, who won the recent election from Sasaram in Bihar, took charge as Water Resources Minister on Friday. A former Indian Foreign Service officer and daughter of Congress stalwart Babu Jagjiwan Ram, Ms. Kumar will now have to resign as Minister.

LONDON: Two British soldiers serving in Afghanistan were killed by an explosion on Saturday while on patrol in Helmand Province in the south of the country, the Ministry of Defence in London announced. One of the soldiers was from the Light Dragoons and the other from the Parachute Regiment and they were serving with the Brigade Reconnaissance Force. They "were killed as a result of an explosion that happened whilst on a deliberate operation near Musa Qal'eh, in Helmand Province on the morning of 30 May 2009," a statement from the ministry said. British troops are in Afghanistan in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is fighting an extremist insurgency and building up the Afghan security forces. The deaths take to 165 the number of British service personnel who have died as part of operations in Afghanistan since 2001.

DHAKA: The police in Bangladesh on Thursday claimed to have arrested Abdul Rauf Merchant, who was convicted of killing audio king Gulshan Kumar in 1997, nearly a week after he escaped from a Mumbai jail following his release on furlough. “We have arrested Rauf who was hiding in a rented house in Brahmanbaria,” assistant police commissioner Muhibul Islam Khan, who led the operation, said. Rauf, he said, has been taken to Dhaka for initial interrogation. According to the Mumbai Police, it has received no official information yet on the arrest and efforts are on to verify whether the arrested accused is Merchant. “We have come to know that someone has been arrested in Bangladesh, but it is not certain whether it is Merchant. We are in the process of verifying this and due action will be taken only after that,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria.

QALQILYA: A Hamas militant was killed and two Palestinian policemen were injured in exchanges of gunfire in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian security officials said. The clashes erupted when security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, which administers the West Bank, raided a neighbourhood in the city of Qalqilya to arrest gunmen of the rival Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip. The officials named the militant as Mohammad Yasin and said policemen were combing the area in a search for more gunmen. Witnesses said several Hamas gunmen holed up in buildings had ignored calls to surrender.

ARCELONA: The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men. The informant, known as "Ahmed", told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a "device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control" in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission. Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year. It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents.

NABLUS: Three Palestinian police officers and one Hamas militant were killed in an exchange of gunfire on Sunday in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, Palestinian police said.The policemen were killed while they were attempting to arrest Mohammad Yassine, a member of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, who had barricaded himself in his home. Two other police officers were killed in the exchange of gunfire. A curfew was imposed on the town following the incident, said the police. Hamas, a bitter rival of the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, violently ousted Fatah from the Gaza Strip in June 2007, effectively limiting Abbas's rule to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

SINGAPORE: Sri Lanka appealed Sunday for support in dismantling the Tamil Tigers' international support network after declaring victory over the rebels following the decades-long conflict.Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told a high-level security forum in Singapore that the global organisation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) remained "largely intact." "Many of the operatives have clearly cultivated powerful, political lobbies in certain capitals with a view to resurrecting the LTTE," he said.“It is important for the international community to take all measures to assist the government of Sri Lanka to track down the global network of the LTTE," he told an annual forum of defence and military officials organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

ZAMBOANGA: Seven Muslim separatist guerrillas died after a foiled attack on a military outpost in the southern Philippines, a military spokesman said Sunday. Rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked the military in Datu Piang town in Mindanao late Saturday in an attempt to destroy artillery at the base, said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce. "Seven rebels were killed in the fighting, but there could be more as the MILF forces retreated with their wounded," said Ponce.Last week, the MILF bombed a bridge and burned houses in Mindanao as part of what they said were counterattacks against the military. Manila opened peace talks with the 12,000-strong MILF in 2001, but the negotiations collapsed in August last year after the Supreme Court struck down a deal that would have given the MILF control over large areas of Mindanao.

Sunday, May 31, 2009two Hamas militants and one civilian were killed in an exchange of gunfire on Sunday in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya.The policemen were killed while they were attempting to arrest Mohammad Yassine, a member of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, who had barricaded himself in his home. Arab TV said that the exchange of firing killed three security men, two Hamas workers and one common man. Security forces have clamped curfew in the town.

JERUSALEM: Israel will not agree to US demands to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, a minister close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told army radio on Sunday.

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted Sunday he would not quit despite a rumbling scandal over MPs expenses and dire poll ratings for his ruling Labour Party ahead of European and local elections.He said the expenses furore was "appalling" and "offends everything that I believe in" as well as promising that every lawmaker would be forced to account for all their expenses from the last four years. A total of 13 lawmakers from Labour and the main opposition Conservatives have said they will stand down since the scandal broke over three weeks ago.The Daily Telegraph newspaper has been publishing leaked documents detailing hundreds of claims from the public purse for everything from moat cleaning to a duck island. On Sunday, the Telegraph published an ICM poll suggesting Labour would come third in the European elections, in which Britons vote Thursday, with just 17 percent, behind the second opposition centrist Liberal Democrats. Even more damagingly, i...