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Former general makes trip to cemetery to pay respects to daughter Ana, who killed herself in 1994 with her father's gun Ratko Mladic has been allowed to visit the grave of his daughter who committed suicide during the Bosnia war of the 1990s. Mladic, who is is awaiting extradition to a UN tribunal, made the visit early on Tuesday morning under tight security, said Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor, Bruno Vekaric. Mladic is expected to be extradited to the tribunal in The Haguelate Tuesday or early Wednesday. "We didn't announce his visit to the grave because it is his private thing and because it represented a security risk," Vekaric said. "The operation lasted for 20 minutes and passed without a glitch." Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive was arrested on Thursday in a village north of Belgrade after 16 years on the run. Mladic is charged by the tribunal for atrocities committed by his Serb troops during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. His 23-yea...

Oxfam says era of permanent food crisis will hit poorest people hardest and spark social unrest The average price of staple foods will more than double in the next 20 years, leading to an unprecedented reversal in human development, Oxfam has warned. The world's poorest people, who spend up to 80% of their income of food, will be hit hardest according to the charity. It said the world is entering an era of permanent food crisis, which is likely to be accompanied by political unrest and will require radical reform of the international food system. Research to be published on Wednesday forecasts international prices of staples such as maize could rise by as much as 180% by 2030, with half of that rise due to the impacts of climate change. After decades of steady decline in the number of hungry people around the world, the numbers are rapidly increasing as demand outpaces food production. The average growth rate in agricultural yields has almost halved since 1990 and is set to decline...

MANILA: The World Health Organisation (WHO) Tuesday said that Asian governments should pass and implement laws that will prevent premature deaths from tobacco-related diseases, Xinhua reported. In China, smoking accounts for about one million deaths per year. In South Korea, the total socio-economic cost of smoking in 2007 was estimated to have reached $6.1 billion. In a statement issued on World No Tobacco Day, senior WHO official Shin Young-soo said such laws are crucial given that smoking has put 900 million people in the region at risk for tobacco-related illness. "In our region, it is estimated that close to half of all men smoke and half of all women and children are regularly exposed to the deadly toxins of second-hand smoke at home and in public places," he said. Of the World Health Organisation's six regions, the Western Pacific Region has the biggest number of smokers. Shin said the socio-economic cost of tobacco use in the region is a "reason for...

Alicia Baker, 26, looks in the mirror before the Memorial Day bodybuilding contest at Muscle Beach in Venice, Los Angeles, California, May 30, 2011. The bodybuilding contest is held annually during the Memorial Day weekend. [Photo/Agencies] Contestants line up for the Memorial Day bodybuilding contest at Muscle Beach in Venice, Los Angeles, California, May 30, 2011. [Photo/Agencies] Contestants line up for the Memorial Day bodybuilding contest at Muscle Beach in Venice, Los Angeles, California, May 30, 2011. [Photo/Agencies] Editor: Du Xiaodan | Source: China Daily

MOSCOW: Posters apparently advertising a Moscow department store's new sports collection by depicting the Russian President and premier wearing tennis outfits were removed. The posters, showing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wearing white polo shirts and shorts, were put up Sunday night near the central Moscow TsUM department store. The government subsequently demanded the removal of the posters by Tuesday and said it the store would face legal action if they were not taken down. A spokesman for TsUM Monday denied the store had any connection to the poster, saying "the use of TsUM trademark is illegal in this case." In the event, it turned out the author of the posters was a member of a Moscow art group, who said he wanted to portray the country's two leaders as "fashionable and relaxed guys, who follow latest trends and enjoy a healthy lifestyle."

Watch Video Play Video European countries have traded blame over the source of a mysterious bacterial outbreak that has killed 14 people and sickened hundreds. German authorities have identified cucumbers from Spain as contamination sources. A third, suspect-batch from either the Netherlands or Denmark is also under investigation. German authorities have warned consumers to avoid eating cucumbers and ordered some products removed from store shelves. The measures were implemented following a recent outbreak linked to contaminated cucumbers. European health experts said the outbreak was the largest ever in Germany and one of the biggest of its kind worldwide. Deadly E. coli virus in Spanish cucumbers Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) The Hamburg Institute for Hygiene and the Environment (HU) found that four cucumbers in a local market were contaminated by Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), and three of them were imported from two separate Spanish suppliers, Hamburg state health aut...

Military to gain a new range of offensive options to defend critical installations around the country from cyber attacks The UK is developing a cyber-weapons programme that will give ministers an attacking capability to help counter growing threats to national security from cyberspace, the Guardian has learned. Whitehall officials have revealed that the UK needs to have a new range of offensive options, and not just bolster defences around the country's critical services and government departments, which regularly come under attack from hackers. The armed forces minister, Nick Harvey, told the Guardian that "action in cyberspace will form part of the future battlefield", and though he said cyber-weapons would not replace traditional weapons, he admitted he now regards them as "an integral part of the country's armoury". It is the first official acknowledgment that such a programme exists. Recognising that there is bound to be concern about when such weapons ...