World News: Obama launches Asian tour with bid to revitalise trade

President Barack Obama is due to arrive in India on the first leg of an Asian tour designed to boost US exports and create jobs.

Mr Obama's ten-day tour also takes in Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.

It comes in the wake of the Democrats' heavy losses in the US mid-term elections, widely seen in part as punishment for the Obama administration's inability to drive down a high unemployment rate.

During his visit Mr Obama will meet local business leaders and American executives. US officials say they expect major contracts to be announced.

He will also pay his respects to the victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks when he flies into India's financial centre.

Before the trip, Mr Obama spoke of the need for greater US access to Indian markets as part of a drive to double US exports over the next five years.

Trade between India and the US was worth about $40 billion in 2008 - still significantly less than US trade with other partners such as China.

India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has said Mr Obama's visit would expand strategic ties between the two countries leading to a more "productive" partnership.

President wins second term

Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete won a second term in office with 61 per cent of the vote, election officials said.

Mr Kikwete's closest competitor in last weekend's election, Wilbrod Slaa, captured 26 per cent of the vote.

18 die in fire at shopping mall

A FIRE in a shopping mall in northern China has killed 18 people and injured 24, the government said.

The fire broke out on Friday at about 9am in a shopping centre located in downtown Jilin's Hunchun Road shopping area.It burned for 12 hours before being extinguished.

Residents flee from hurricane

Panicked residents fled a coastal city that has been slammed twice already this decade by killer floods as an intensifying Hurricane Tomas moved up Haiti's coast.

The hurricane spared most earthquake-refugee camps in the capital Port-au-Prince but battered the seaside town of Legone.

Coming ashore at Haiti's far south-western edge, the Category One storm hit the coastline with 85mph winds and killed at least four people.

Two held for 'selling grandson'

A US woman and her boyfriend were charged with trying to sell her infant grandson for $30,000.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents arrested 45-year-old Patty Bigbee and 42-year-old Lawrence Works in Daytona Beach after they met with an agent posing as a buyer.

Marines kill drug baron in gun battle

Mexico: Alleged drug cartel leader Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen has been killed in a shoot-out in the border city of Matamoros, officials said.

Three gunmen and two marines also died in the gun battle.

France: Environmentalists handcuffed themselves in front of a train carrying 123 tons of reprocessed nuclear waste, bringing the shipment to a halt just hours after it set off from France to Germany.