News In Brief
Egypt polls set for February or March
Afp, Cairo
Egypt is to hold parliamentary elections in February or March, two months after the country votes on a new constitution, a foreign ministry official said yesterday.
The official said the schedule, in line with a timetable set out by the country's interim president, was on track.
US loses Unesco voting rights
The Guardian Online
American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow yesterday after the US automatically lost voting rights at Unesco after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world's cultural agency.
The US has not paid its dues to the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in protest over the decision by world governments to make Palestine a Unesco member in 2011. Israel suspended its dues at the same time and also lost voting rights yesterday.
Indian Mars mission on track
Afp, New Delhi
India's Mars spacecraft has completed the first of a series of engine firings designed to free it from Earth's gravitational pull and propel it towards the Red Planet, scientists said yesterday.
India began the quest to become the first Asian country to reach Mars on Tuesday with the succesful launch from its southern space station of a 1.35 tonne unmanned probe, which is strapped to a rocket.
Jordan to take Saudi seat on UNSC
Afp, United Nations
Jordan is expected to take up a UN Security Council seat that Saudi Arabia won and then rejected, diplomats said Thursday.
Envoys said Jordan had been reluctant to take up the Asia-Pacific seat on the 15-nation council but had been persuaded by the Saudis.
Man held over China party office blasts
Cnn Online
A local man has been arrested in connection with a series of explosions that rocked Communist Party offices in a northern Chinese province earlier this week killing one person.
The suspect, named as 41-year-old Feng Zhijun, was captured during a raid on his home at 2:00am local time yesterday morning, police in Shanxi said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The report said Feng admitted causing the blasts.
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