The Malaysian Insider

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 20 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said presidential and legislative elections scheduled for January will be postponed, confirming that he has accepted advice not to hold the vote.

Abbas, speaking to BBC Arabic, said the Palestinian leadership would take measures to avoid a constitutional vacuum - although he did not spell these out — when the term of the current legislature and his term as president expire on Jan 25.

Abbas also said he would not seek a second term as president. He had previously said he had no desire to run in the elections which had been scheduled for Jan 24.

UPDATED

COCKERMOUTH, England Nov 20 — Torrential rain of “biblical proportions” caused serious flooding across northern England and southern Scotland today as searches intensified for a police officer who went missing after a bridge collapsed.

Flood defences in Cumbrian towns were overwhelmed by unprecedented downpours that officials said could be expected only once in 1,000 years.

The Meteorological Office said the amount of rain expected during the entire month of November had fallen in 24 hours. The Environment Agency reported 314 mm had fallen in one area in 24 hours which it said was a record for England.

LONDON, Nov 20 — A man who strangled his wife in his sleep walked free from court today after prosecutors withdrew their case against him.

Brian Thomas, 59, of Neath in South Wales, killed his wife Christine, 57, while they were on holiday in July last year.

Prosecutors had accepted that Thomas had a sleep disorder and so had no control over his body when he attacked his wife of 40 years while they were both asleep.

Thomas admitted being responsible but instead of charging him with murder or manslaughter, prosecutors had sought a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, the Press Association reported.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 20 — Eight Islamist militants were killed in a US missile strike in northwest Pakistan today, officials said, after three policemen were killed in a bomb blast.

The attack came shortly before the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which oversees the drone strikes, met government leaders in Islamabad for talks that covered US strategy in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The United States has carried out 46 attacks with its pilotless, missile-firing aircraft in northwest Pakistan this year as its forces in Afghanistan have faced an intensifying Taliban insurgency.

HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov 20 — A suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated his explosives in a crowded area in southwest Afghanistan today, killing 17 people, including a senior police official, a provincial governor said.

Farah Province Police Chief Faqir Mohammad Askar said the target of the attack in the provincial capital Farah City was the police official, who was killed along with two of his bodyguards.

Governor of Farah, Rohul Amin told Reuters the death toll in the blast had risen to 17. Earlier, the head of the city's main hospital, said 15 people had died. Amin said 29 people were also wounded in the attack.