ALEXANDRIA:Take me over Cleopatra’s palace,” I asked the tour-boat operator on a recent visit to Alexandria, Egypt’s Mediterranean metropolis. “No problem,” the young Egyptian guide said. “You’ll see it all, even the great lighthouse.”

It was a trip through Alexandria’s old harbour. Supposedly, we would be able to gaze into the deep and view sunken remains — Cleopatra’s royal residence as well as a palace she built for liaisons with her lover, Marc Antony, along with remnants of the Pharos lighthouse, and assorted sphinxes, columns and an obelisk. The half- hour cruise, however, revealed nothing but murky water.

NEW DELHI: Oil minister Murli Deora's appeal and offer of relief cut little ice with the agitating officers, who felt it was "too late, too little". "We are firm on striking work as the assurance given by none else than the
PM on September 4 last year has not been fulfiled. The strike will be total and paralyse all operations, especially refuelling of aircraft," said Mukul Kumar of IndianOil Officers' Association.

The officers are seeking merger of 50% dearness allowance with basic pay, release of ad-hoc payment and withdrawal of tax on perquisites like company-provided accommodation.

Australian airline Virgin Blue Holdings almost doubled its full-year earnings after attracting more corporate travellers, helping offset rising fuel bills.

Virgin Blue, Australia's second-largest airline, said it expected further revenue growth this year but also higher costs as it sets up new services in New Zealand and to the United States.

Net profit for the year to June 30 was $216 million compared with $112 million a year earlier. Net profit before one-off items was $232 million.

This compared with analyst expectations of $204.4 million, according to the mean of 9 forecasts on Reuters Estimates.

Bush joins Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday in Montebello, Quebec, in hopes of expanding cooperation among their countries, which enjoy the largest trading partnership in the world.

The two-day North American Leaders’ Summit appears to lack a signature issue, except perhaps a new U.S. push to halt Mexico’s bloody drug wars.

Instead, the broad theme is economic prosperity, built around several topics: border security, competitiveness with India and China, product safety and energy solutions.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama are expected to portray themselves as the candidates better able than Clinton to deliver change to Washington, D.C., as the candidates showcase themes likely to define the fall campaign.

The debate, broadcast nationally as a special edition of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, comes as a summer of relentless campaigning in Iowa draws to a close without a clear favorite emerging in the leadoff caucus state.

President Fidel Castro's 81st birthday marks a year of transition, of change but no change. No longer at the helm, the government still pays reverential homage to the spirit of Fidel, while the physically frail 81-year-old leader has stopped all public appearances during his prolonged recuperation in a secret medical facility.

His younger brother, 76-year-old Raúl Castro, defence minister and now acting president, makes far fewer and much shorter speeches than his brother, but his economy of words has raised hopes, because he has focused on tackling bread-and-butter issues. He has spelt out a simple basic truth: that state salaries are inadequate. Most Cubans officially earn less than $20 a month, totally out of synch with prices for cooking oil and other basics, forcing many Cubans to moonlight, pilfer and barter to make ends meet.

BAGHDAD - As French President Nicolas Sarkozy was returning home from a two-week holiday in the United States, his Foreign Minister was arriving in Baghdad.

If Sarkozy's American vacation, with its boat ride with US President George W. Bush, was an indication of a new direction for French-American relations, Bernard Kouchner's trip to Iraq signalled a new French approach to US foreign policy.

Kouchner is the first top French official to visit Iraq since the beginning of the US-led war in 2003, which France vigorously opposed, causing a bitter division between the countries.

Turkey's new parliament, divided along party lines, could not elect a president Monday, as frontrunner Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed in a first round of voting. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has failed to win enough support to be elected president in the first round of voting in Turkey's parliament.

Mr. Gul, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AK party, received 341 votes in parliament Monday, short of the 387 needed for the two-thirds majority required for a first-round election.

Uzbekistan had a budget surplus of 201.5 billion soums, or 1.9% of GDP, in the first half of 2007, a source on the country's parliamentary Budget and Economic Reform Committee said.

Parliamentary delegation of Israel headed by Knesset Vice-Speaker Amnon Cohen is on a visit in Uzbekistan. On 20 August, the delegation held talks with the Speaker of the Legislative Chamber of Uzbekistan’s Oliy Majlis Erkin Khalilov.

The sides considered the current state and perspectives of inter-parliamentary cooperation between Uzbekistan and Israel.

A classic credit rating is the result of a large-scale labourious research reflected in a single final indicator, which portrays the company's overall reliability. This and other related issues were discussed at a roundtable meeting held by the representatives of the financial sector of Uzbekistan on 17 August at the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan.

The meeting titled "Rating as a powerful tool for attracting investors" was organised by the Ministry of Finance, the Association of Professional Participants of the Insurance Market of Uzbekistan, the Centre for Coordination and Control over the Functioning of the Securities Market, the Association of Leasing Companies and Credit Unions, Expert RA Rating Agency (Russia) and SAIPRO Company (Uzbekistan).

On 17 August, the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan hosted a roundtable meeting, which discussed rating as a powerful tool for attracting investors.

Thanks to fast economic growth, the financial sector of Uzbekistan is observing dynamic development. The interest of foreign investors in the Uzbek market rises accordingly. Meanwhile, these investors naturally want up-to-date objective information about the market participants, their financial stability, reliability, performance, etc.

The presidents of Russia, China and four Central Asian states attended unprecedented joint military exercises on 17 August, intended as a display of strength before the Western world, Taipei Times reported.

The vast show of firepower at a training ground in the Russian province of Chelyabinsk near the Kazakh border was the culmination of a nine-day exercise dubbed "Peace Mission 2007" that began in northwest China.

It involved some 6,000 personnel from the six countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.