IN BRIEF (Page 12)

China

Italian FM signs agreements

The fourth joint meeting of the China-Italy Governmental Committee concluded in Beijing on Tuesday.

Five agreements were signed at the meeting, including one that allows visa-free travel of diplomats between the two countries.

Visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini co-chaired the closing ceremony with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

Italy is looking forward to further cooperation with China in various fields, including the high-tech area, Frattini said.

Iraq

Govt wants US military trainers

Iraq wants the United States to supply several thousand trainers for its military but is unlikely to ask Washington to extend its troop presence beyond a year-end deadline, Iraqi security and political sources say.

The difference between troops and trainers, usually former soldiers and police contracted to the US government, may be critical for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as he deals with squabbling politicians and tries to appease constituents who want the Americans out.

With less than six months to go on the 2008 security pact between the two countries, Maliki is having a hard time unifying his shaky cross-sectarian coalition government on whether Iraq needs to keep some US troops more than eight years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Pakistan

Unmanned navy aircraft crashes

A Pakistani surveillance navy drone crashed near an oil refinery after hitting a bird on a routine flight, coming down in the country's largest city of Karachi on Tuesday, the navy said.

"A Pakistan Navy UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) crashed after a bird hit it. It fell near an oil refinery and there was no (other) damage," navy spokesman Commodore Irfan Ul Haq said.

Fellow navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali said that there were no casualties and that the drone had been on a surveillance flight when a bird flew into the aircraft and it came down in the Karachi suburbs.

Gunmen kidnap charity workers

Gunmen have kidnapped eight local staff working for a US charity near the Afghan border in southwest Pakistan, which is rife with insurgency and sectarian violence, officials said on Tuesday.

Government officials said the American Refugee Committee workers were kidnapped on Monday in Pishin district, about 50 kilometers north of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

"All of them are Pakistani employees of the American NGO. We have launched an operation to trace them," said Abdul Mansoor, deputy Pishin district commissioner.

Egypt

Cabinet talks set to resume

Egypt's embattled Prime Minister Essam Sharaf was putting final touches to his new cabinet on Tuesday after being hospitalized overnight suffering from exhaustion.

The cabinet, aimed at appeasing protesters who want a purge of old regime figures and quicker reforms, was meant to take office on Monday but a swearing-in ceremony was postponed amid objections to the choice of ministers.

The cabinet said on its Facebook page late on Monday night that Sharaf "left his office after a hard day's work, which necessitated his undergoing medical tests".

China Daily-Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 07/20/2011 page12)