From the moment five years ago when he stormed into parliament with a red rose in hand, Mikheil Saakashvili has embodied the hopes, and the disappointments, of Georgia`s `Rose Revolution`.

BRIGHTON, England, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was to announce plans to find an extra 500,000 jobs Monday, his office said, in a bid to ease tension with workers' representatives over public sector pay.

In his first speech as premier to the annual conference of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Brown was to say he wants to see 'a British job for every British worker', a spokesman for his Downing Street office said.

JERUSALEM, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas began a new round of talks on Monday ahead of an international peace meeting later this year.

Abbas's motorcade arrived under heavy security at Olmert's residence in west Jerusalem shortly after 0900 GMT for the leaders' third encounter in five weeks.

HONG KONG, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Hong Kong share prices closed little changed Monday as strong gains in the local stock market operator helped a recovery from early losses on worries over the US economy, dealers said.

The market opened sharply lower following heavy falls on Wall Street Friday after disappointing US non-farm payrolls data, they said.

But it recovered steadily as Hong Kong Exchanges Clearing (HKEx) surged to an all-time high following news that the Hong Kong government has raised its stake in the stock market operator to 5.88 percent.

SEOUL, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - South Korea's top carmaker Hyundai Motor said Monday its management and union had signed a wage deal, avoiding a strike over annual pay negotiations for the first time in a decade.

Hyundai executives and union leaders hailed the agreement as a win-win deal which would pave the way for a new era of cooperation.

Under the deal, Hyundai workers will get a 5.8 percent rise in monthly salary, an extension of the retirement age by one year to 59, an increase in the annual bonus and two separate annual payments of one million won each.

BAGHDAD, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Iraq's embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave an upbeat assessment of the situation in the war-ravaged country on Monday, saying civil war had been prevented and boasting that violence had dropped 75 percent in the restive provinces of Baghdad and Anbar.

'We have succeeded in preventing Iraq from sliding into a civil war in spite of all the destabilising actions by local and international groups,' Maliki told parliament.

TALLINN, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Estonian economic growth slowed to 7.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007 on an annual comparison, the national statistics office said Monday, issuing revised figures.

In the first quarter of 2007, gross domestic product expanded by 9.8 percent on a 12-month comparison.

The office attributed the slowdown in the second quarter to weaker domestic demand and a considerable deceleration in exports.

ABU DHABI, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin was in the United Arab Emirates on Monday as he made his second visit to the oil-rich Gulf this year along with a large business delegation.

The Russian leader was due to hold talks with his United Arab Emirate counterpart President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the official WAM news agency said without giving any detailed agenda.

It was the first visit to the United Arab Emirate by a Russian head of state since it won independence from Britain in 1971.

OSLO, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Norway said Monday it would give 10 million kroner (1.26 million euros, 1.46 million dollars) to help Palestinian refugees who have fled a camp destroyed by fighting between the Lebanese army and Islamists.

The donation was to be formally announced in Beirut during a meeting Monday of donors for the reconstruction of the Nahr al-Bared camp after 15 weeks of battle, the Norwegian foreign ministry said in a statement.

BANGKOK, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A Myanmar-based pro-democracy group involved in rare protests against the country's military rulers on Monday vowed to continue resisting the junta despite a crackdown on its members.

Seventeen members of the 88 Generation Students group, made up of former student leaders who led an uprising against military rule in 1988, have been arrested since an August 19 rally in Yangon over a massive hike in fuel prices.

LUSAKA, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - The wife of former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba appeared in court Monday charged with receiving proceeds of corrupt acts by her husband, who is accused of stealing state funds.

Regina Chiluba appeared before a magistrates court in the capital Lusaka on six counts of receiving property and funds allegedly stolen by Chiluba when he was president between 1991 and 2001.

She was arrested and charged last week just days after being discharged by the court following the withdrawal of the same charges by state prosecutors.

KHOST, Afghanistan, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A group that abducted a 13-man mine clearing team in Afghanistan last week released 10 of their hostages on Monday, a provincial government official said.

Their release was negotiated by tribal elders and no ransom was paid, said Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration in eastern Paktia where the men were captured Thursday.

'Ten of them have been freed and negotiations to free the remaining three others are under way,' Darvish told AFP.

BAGHDAD, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A US soldier died from wounds sustained when insurgents fired a rocket at his patrol in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk, the military said on Monday.

The soldier died on Sunday. Another soldier was wounded in the attack, the military said.

The latest fatality took the military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,752, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

SHANGHAI, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Chinese share prices closed 1.48 percent up Monday, as strong prospects for the auto industry sparked a late turnaround after early losses, dealers said.

Investors eagerly snapped-up auto stocks after the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced auto industry profits soared 69.81 percent year-on-year in the first seven months, they said.

Combined earnings to the end of July soared to 34.5 billion yuan (4.54 billion dollars), the quasi-government association said.

BEIJING, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - China's foreign ministry refused to comment on Monday about comments from a top French security official that government computer systems in France had fallen prey to Chinese cyber-attacks.

'We don't have any information on that,' a ministry spokesman said when asked for a response to the statements from Secretary General of National Defence, Francis Delon.

PRISTINA, Serbia, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A US soldier serving with NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR) has died in a car accident, KFOR said in a statement Monday.

The accident, which did not involve other vehicles, happened close to the provincial capital Pristina late on Sunday.

'The soldier was injured in the accident and he died two hours later,' the statement said.

Around 16,000 KFOR peacekeepers are responsible for maintaining security in Kosovo, an ethnic Albanian-dominated province of Serbia.

TOKYO, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Japanese share prices closed down 2.22 percent on Monday as investors took fright at a surprise fall in US payrolls and a contraction of the Japanese economy, dealers said.

Exporter shares were particularly hard hit after the dollar slumped against the yen and other currencies as US job losses raised concerns that the world's largest economy may be heading for recession, they added.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark Nikkei-225 index of leading shares dropped 357.19 points to end at 15,764.97.

TOKYO, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Japan's economy contracted in the second quarter of 2007 as firms cut spending on new factories and equipment, the government said Monday, adding to jitters over the global economic climate.

The setback to Japan's economic recovery, which comes just as the US economy shows signs of faltering, further reduced expectations of the Bank of Japan raising its super-low interest rates again any time soon.

ROME, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Italian economic growth slowed to 0.1 percent in the second quarter of the year compared with the first, when output rose 0.3 percent, the statistics body Istat reported Monday.

The economy expanded 1.8 percent in the second quarter from the same period last year, Istat said.

RIYADH, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Saudi Arabia has called off a camel beauty contest scheduled for later this month in the face of the mystery deaths of thousands of the animals that are a national icon in the desert kingdom.

The provincial governor for the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Khaled al-Faisal bin Abdel Aziz, took the decision in the face of the mounting death toll in a national herd estimated at 862,000 animals in 2005, the Al-Watan daily reported on Monday.

ROTHLEY, England, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - The parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann faced a media siege Monday on their first full day back in Britain after being named suspects in her disappearance in Portugal.

Gerry and Kate McCann returned with their two-year-old twins to their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, central England Sunday, insisting that they were not giving up on their search for four-year-old Madeleine.

But they face a period of uncertainty in the coming weeks after Portuguese police Friday named them both as arguidos, or formal suspects.

PARIS, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - The French hotel group Accor said Monday it had completed the sale of its US hotel chain Red Roof Inn to an investment consortium for 1.313 billion dollars (954 million euros).

Red Roof, which comprises 341 hotels, was acquired by Global Special Situations Group and the Westbridge fund.

Accor said in a statement it now planned to concentrate on its Motel 6 group, a low-cost motel chain in the United States with 928 separate establishments.

FRANKFURT, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Porsche sports cars will struggle to meet strict carbon dioxide emissions limits that the European Union is proposing to introduce from 2012, chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking acknowledged Monday.

Wiedeking told the business daily Handelsblatt that current models of the popular luxury cars would not meet the limits and that the EU should set separate standards for each of the market's segments.

PHNOM PENH, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Cambodia's former king said he would refuse to testify at the country's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal after being snubbed by court officials.

Norodom Sihanouk had requested a weekend meeting with officials to explain his conduct during the Khmer Rouge regime, which saw as many as two million people killed.

The 84-year-old former monarch said on his website Monday that he had been told that his invitation to a tribunal spokesman had been refused because the spokesman was not authorised to hold such a meeting.

SYDNEY, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Australian share prices closed 1.4 percent lower Monday on worries the US economy was heading for a slowdown which would lessen demand for key commodities such as copper and nickel, dealers said.

They said weak US job figures had added to the ongoing volatility caused by the credit crunch in the US subprime market.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 closed down 87.2 points at 6,191.2, while the broader All Ordinaries index fell 86.9 points or 1.4 percent to 6,209.6.

ISLAMABAD, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A plane carrying former prime minister Nawaz Sharif left Pakistan on Monday for Saudi Arabia, hours after the ex-leader returned from seven years in exile, officials told AFP.

'He has been sent back,' a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Local television footage showed a Pakistan International Airlines plane that it said was carrying Sharif taking off from Islamabad airport.

TEHRAN, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Iran is pressing on with one of its toughest moral crackdowns in years, warning tens of thousands of women over slack dress, targeting 'immoral' cafes and seizing illegal satellite receivers, local media reported on Monday.

The Iranian police launched the crackdown in April in a self-declared drive to 'elevate security in society' that encompassed arrests of thugs, raids on underground parties and street checks of improperly dressed individuals.

ISLAMABAD, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistan is to send former premier Nawaz Sharif back into exile in Saudi Arabia, a minister and a senior government official told AFP.

Sharif flew back to Pakistan from seven years in exile earlier Monday, pledging to topple military ruler President Pervez Musharraf, the man who ousted him in 1999.

'He is going back to Saudi Arabia. All arrangements have been made to deport him,' the minister said.

BRUSSELS, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - EU antitrust regulators gave the green light Monday to a merger of Britain's Automobile Association with travel and insurance firm Saga after determining that the deal would not stifle competition.

'The (European) Commission has concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition,' the European Union's top antitrust regulator said in a statement.

SYDNEY, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - As the giant fence that divided central Sydney during the APEC summit came down Monday, angry tourism chiefs accused police of damaging the city's image through overzealous security.

Tourism Task Force chief executive Chris Brown said Sydney's reputation as a breezy, fun city earned during the 2000 Olympics had been tarnished and the tourist industry was likely to suffer.

WASHINGTON, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Americans trust US military commanders over President George W. Bush or the Democratic-controlled US Congress to successfully end the Iraq war, according to a poll published Monday.

When asked to choose who could best end the war, 68 percent said they most trusted the military commanders, 21 percent said Congress, and just five percent said the Bush administration, the New York Times/CBS News poll found.

MADRID, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Spanish security forces defused Monday an ETA car bomb targeting a government building, officials said, the day after the armed Basque separatist group warned it would 'keep striking.'

'Fortunately ETA failed with their bomb, which did not explode because of a malfunction,' Jose Antonio Ulecia, the top official for the northern Rioja region where the bomb was planted, was quoted as saying by La Rioja radio.

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - The World Health Organisation warned Monday against complacency in the fight against bird flu, saying another human influenza pandemic is inevitable sooner or later.

'I am often asked if the effort invested in pandemic preparedness is a waste of resources,' director general Margaret Chan told a regional meeting of the world organisation.

'Has public health cried wolf too often and too loudly?' she said in a speech.

MADRID, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Spanish security forces defused Monday an ETA car bomb targeting members of the government, officials said, the day after the armed Basque separatist group warned it would 'keep striking.'

'Fortunately ETA failed with their bomb, which did not explode because of a malfunction,' Jose Antonio Ulecia, the top official for the northern Rioja region where the bomb was planted, was quoted as saying by La Rioja radio.

ANKARA, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Turkey's economy grew by 3.9 percent in the second quarter of 2007 compared to the same period last year, the Turkish Statistics Institute said Monday.

The figure shows the change in gross national product (GNP) over the period, the preferred measure of Turkish economic growth, which includes the output of millions of Turkish workers abroad.

Turkey's GNP increased by 6.7 percent in the first quarter of the year and by 5.2 percent in the first six months, the institute said.

JERUSALEM, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - A top Hamas commander snatched by Israeli commando troops last week will be used as a bargaining chip for the release of a soldier held by Gaza militants, a senior Israeli minister said on Monday.

'The ability to acquire new assets which are concretely relevant to the release of Gilad Shalit gives us a considerable advantage,' Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter told army radio, referring to the Israeli soldier who was seized in June 2006.

ISLAMABAD, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif was detained over corruption charges after returning from exile Monday and is being moved to prison from the airport by helicopter, officials told AFP.

'Nawaz Sharif is under pre-emptive arrest in connection with corruption charges against him,' Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid, a close confidant of President Pervez Musharraf, told AFP without elaborating.

Officials said Sharif was taken by helicopter from the airport to a jail in northwestern Pakistan.