Iran, US, EU hold N-talks
Muscat, November 9
With only two weeks to a deadline for a breakthrough deal, senior envoys of Iran, the United States and European Union met in Oman on Sunday to try to advance efforts to defuse a standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Barcelona, November 9
Spain's Catalonia region voted in a symbolic ballot today on whether to break away as an independent state, defying fierce challenges by the Spanish government.

Voters formed long queues outside polling stations and some applauded as the ballots opened today morning, after weeks of tense legal wrangling with Spanish authorities.

One of Spain's richest but most indebted regions, Catalonia's long-standing yearning for greater autonomy has swelled in recent years of economic hardship, sharpened by resistance from Madrid.

"This is an opportunity we could not miss... We have been demanding it for a very long time," said Martin Arbaizar, 16, queueing under blue skies to vote at a polling station in a school in Barcelona.

The Spanish government challenged the vote in the courts, forcing Catalan leaders to adapt it from an official but non-binding referendum to a symbolic vote organised by volunteers.

Spain's conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government has vowed to defend the unity of the country, as it recovers from a steep economic downturn. His government has mounted a series of constitutional appeals to try to block the vote.

But Catalans have pushed ahead defiantly, fired up by the independence referendum held in Scotland in September, even though Scots voted not to break away from Britain.

Rajoy says his country cannot hold an independence referendum like Scotland because, unlike Britain, it has a written constitution that forbids it.

He downplayed the significance of the poll at a party rally yesterday in the eastern city of Caceres.

Proud of its distinct language and culture, Catalonia, a region of 7.5 million people, accounts for nearly a fifth of Spain's economy.

Demands for greater autonomy there have been rumbling for years, but the latest bid by the region's president Artur Mas has pushed the issue further than ever before.

Catalonia took a step towards greater autonomy in 2006 when it formally adopted a charter that assigned it the status of a "nation". But in 2010 Spain's Constitutional Court overruled that nationhood claim, fuelling pro-independence passions. — AFP

Baghdad, November 9
Iraq was today investigating whether Islamic State jihadist group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes targeting the group's leaders.

The death of the elusive Baghdadi would be a major victory for the coalition of countries carrying out air strikes against IS and aiding Iraqi forces fighting to regain large areas of Iraq that the jihadists have overrun.

The announcement of the strikes came after President Barack Obama unveiled plans to send up to 1,500 more US troops to Iraq to advise and train the country's forces, deepening Washington's commitment to the open-ended war against IS.

"Until now, there is no accurate information available," a senior Iraqi intelligence official said when asked about whether Baghdadi had been killed.

"The information is from unofficial sources and was not confirmed until now, and we are working on that," the official said without specifying what the initial reports indicated.

US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, yesterday said that coalition aircraft conducted a "series of air strikes" against "a gathering of (IS) leaders near Mosul".

"We cannot confirm if (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among those present," said Centcom spokesman Patrick Ryder.

The US-led strikes late Friday were a further sign of "the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL terrorist network," he said, using another acronym for the Islamic State group.

"I can't absolutely confirm that Baghdadi has been killed," General Nicholas Houghton, the chief of staff of the British armed forces, told BBC television on Sunday. "Probably it will take some days to have absolute confirmation." — AFP

Muscat, November 9
With only two weeks to a deadline for a breakthrough deal, senior envoys of Iran, the United States and European Union met in Oman on Sunday to try to advance efforts to defuse a standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Reiterating Iran's official line, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by Iranian media as saying the Islamic Republic would not abandon its nuclear "rights" but was committed to the negotiations under Khamenei's leadership.

Western countries and close US ally Israel suspect Iran has covertly sought to develop the means to build nuclear weapons, and a decade-long confrontation over the issue has raised the risk of a wider war in the volatile Middle East.

The discussions, between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU envoy Catherine Ashton, aim to put verifiable limits on Iran's uranium enrichment work in return for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

Iran denies any secret nuclear weapons agenda, saying it wants peaceful nuclear energy only, but has refused to curb enrichment capacity and has been hit by damaging US, EU and UN Security Council sanctions as a result.

As Kerry arrived in Oman, a senior US official said the three-way talks would be "an important meeting," with the focus on making progress in order to meet the deadline.

Kerry said last week that the United States and its partners were not contemplating an extension of the November 24 deadline, although he held out the possibility that negotiations could go beyond that date if major issues were resolved and there were only technical details to wrap up.— Reuters

Berlin, November 9
The fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, heralding the end to the Cold War between East and West, showed the world "dreams can come true" and should inspire people trapped in tyranny everywhere, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.

Festivities to mark the anniversary have drawn more than 100,000 Berliners and tourists to the centre of the once-divided city. Many wandered along a 15-km (9-mile) former "death strip" where the Wall once stood, and 7,000 illuminated helium balloons were perched 3.6 metres (11.8 feet) high on poles - matching the height of the barrier built in 1961 by Communist East Germany.

Merkel, a young scientist in Communist East Berlin when she got her first taste of freedom on November 9, 1989, said in a speech that the Wall's opening in response to mass popular pressure would be eternally remembered as a triumph of the human spirit. — Reuters