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Washington, September 13: The Obama administration is preparing new rules that would give hundreds of prisoners being held by the US military in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detentions, according to published reports.

The guidelines would for the first time allow about 600 prisoners held at an American-run prison at the Bagram Air Base to call witnesses and submit evidence in their defence, The Washington Post and New York Times reported in stories Saturday on the Web.

London, September 13: Two Indian teams are helping the Sri Lankan security forces in recovering “buried arms” and demining operations following the defeat of the LTTE, a senior official has said.

Rajiva Wijesinha, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human rights of Sri Lanka, said the security forces were currently focussing on recovering “buried arms” and demining.

Eight teams including two from India were doing most of the demining operation, he said.

Tripoli, September 13: The health of the terminally ill Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has deteriorated markedly in the past day, his brother and doctors said on Saturday.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland and allowed to return home last month on the grounds that he has prostate cancer and does not have long to live.

Freetown, September 13: Sierra Leone has recovered and buried the bodies of 120 people who died in this week’s ferry disaster, a naval official said, but scores more passengers are still unaccounted for.

Naval Lieutenant Mohamed Turay of the surveillance patrol unit yesterday said, “A total of 120 corpses have now been buried, some in mass graves… because of their badly decomposed condition.”

Sydney, September 13: The Australian Navy has intercepted a suspected people-smuggling boat carrying 65 asylum seekers, officials said, the second vessel stopped in 24 hours off the country’s northwest coast.

The HMAS Maitland intercepted the vessel last night about three nautical miles from Ashmore Island, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said.

Earlier yesterday, the same Navy patrol boat stopped another boat carrying 83 asylum seekers about 80 nautical miles south of Ashmore Island, an uninhabited Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.

San Jose, September 13: Costa Rican authorities have said they had arrested 54 undocumented African migrants, including seven women, off the country’s Caribbean coast.

Authorities in the city of Limon, 170 kilometres east of San Jose, said the migrants were intercepted aboard an ageing boat under the command of three men, who have been taken into custody on suspicion of human trafficking.

The Red Cross said the migrants, whose nationalities were unknown, had not eaten for several days.

Wellington, September 13: At least 50 people were arrested as students rioted for a second night in New Zealand’s university city of Dunedin, news reports said on Sunday.

Police donned riot gear as drunken students threw bottles, set fire to furniture in the streets and created general disorder in the three hours after midnight, Radio New Zealand reported.

Rio de Janeiro, September 13: Heavy rains in southern Brazil over the last few days have killed two people and forced some 19,000 people to abandon their homes, officials said.

In the state of Santa Catarina, the hardest hit by the storm, a 60-year-old woman was drowned on a highway flooded by the Ararangua River near the town of Praia Grande, according to the latest bulletin from regional officials.

In the neighbouring state of Rio Grande do Sul, a man of 45 died on Saturday when the Mel River overflowed its banks in the municipality of Irai and swept his car away.

Caracas, September 13: A strong 6.4 magnitude earthquake shook major oil exporter Venezuela on Saturday, causing panic in the capital, Caracas, and injuring at least seven people when houses in the countryside collapsed.

The quake, the strongest in the South American nation in years, hit at about 3:40 pm local time (2010 GMT), authorities said. It also knocked out power in several regions.

Caracas, September 13: Venezuela has signed a deal with five energy companies, mainly Russian, to exploit its deposits of heavy crude oil.

State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA said its agreement is with a consortium of Russian oil and gas companies Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom and Surgutneftegaz. TNK-BP, a British-Russian joint venture, also is participating.

The joint enterprise will exploit an area of Venezuela’s heavy-oil producing Orinoco Oil Belt, where they expect to pump 400,000 to 450,000 barrels a day.

Caracas, September 13: Venezuela’s federal police are investigating the shooting death of a mayor who was a member of the opposition to President Hugo Chavez.

Police chief Wilmer Flores Trossel says Mayor Lluvane Alvarez was shot by unidentified assailants as he entered his home on Saturday.

Alvarez was mayor of the Panamericano municipality in western Tachira state. Like other states bordering Colombia, Tachira is plagued by crime related to drug trafficking and other illicit activities.

Almaty, September 13: Officials in Kazakhstan say 38 people were killed in a fire at a drug treatment centre early Sunday.

The blaze broke out at about 5:30 am local time (2330 GMT) and spread over an area of 7,000 sq feet (650 square meters) in Taldykorgan in the Central Asian nation’s south, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Emergency workers evacuated 40 people from the building during the fire, the Ministry said.

The cause of the blaze was not yet unclear.

Washington, September 13: Ten of thousands of protestors from across the United States descended on the nation’s capital Saturday, decrying President Barack Obama, “big government” and big spending.

They carried hand-painted posters protesting Obama’s proposed health care reforms and accusing his administration of leading the United States down the road to socialism.

“Abortion is not healthcare,” read one sign. Another, held aloft by an immigrant from Ukraine, said: “I had enough of socialism in the USSR.”

Los Angeles, September 13: California lawmakers have approved a plan to reduce the state’s prison population by up to 25,000 in two years, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

The plan, agreed on Friday after weeks of tense debate, is less ambitious than that envisioned by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But the Times, citing administration officials, said he still intends to sign the legislation.

Dallas, September 13: Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug has died in Texas at age 95.

Known as the father of the “green revolution,” Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger.

Texas A&M University spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips said Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas.