“Such European countries as Greece, which have excessive budget deficits have to do everything to regulate their financial problems” the European Central Bank president stated in his Saturday interview.

The EU strictly recommends Athens to carry out the strict control and plan the budget deficiency, which now is more then four times broken 3-% limit EU provides for all of its members.

“Greece is not the only country of European Union, which obviously have to normalize their national expenses and regulating them with provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact," – that is how ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet in an interview with the German weekly Focus commented the European finances condition.

SYDNEY (AFP) – The barrister wife of former prime minister Tony Blair will represent a group of Australian Aborigines suing the British government over nuclear testing on their land, a report said Saturday.

Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement spokesman Neil Gillespie said Cherie Blair had been engaged by a group from Emu Field, in Australia's red desert centre, who are seeking compensation over 1953 atomic tests by Britain.

Five cases had been lodged in the British courts over illnesses allegedly linked to the fallout from two nuclear weapons exploded in the Great Victoria Desert in October 1953.

JOS, Nigeria (AFP) – At least 150 bodies have been recovered from wells following Muslim-Christian clashes in central Nigeria in which the estimated death toll already stood at over 300, a village head and volunteers told AFP Saturday.

"So far we have picked 150 bodies from the wells. But 60 more people are still missing, said Umar Baza, head of Kuru Karama village near the city of Jos.

"We took an inventory of the displaced people from this village, sheltering in three camps and we realise that 60 people can still not be accounted for," he added, speaking by telephone.

Head of the Muslim volunteer team in the village, Mohammed Shittu, said further searches would be carried out on Saturday.

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian police prepared Saturday to reenact the final movements of an Indian man fatally stabbed earlier this month, as another victim claimed he was beaten because of his race.

Nitin Garg, 21, was attacked as he walked from Melbourne's Yarraville train station through parkland on January 2. He managed to stagger to a nearby hamburger restaurant, where he was due to start an evening shift, before collapsing from fatal stab wounds.

His murder and a spate of other attacks against Indian nationals inflamed diplomatic tensions, with New Delhi this week warning the violence could damage relations.

GENEVA – The United Nations says Haiti's government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 132 people were pulled from the rubble alive by international search and rescue teams.

Spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Saturday that humanitarian relief efforts are still being scaled up in the capital Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane and other areas affected by the Jan. 12 quake.

Source: UN: Haiti gov't...

LABADEE, Haiti – With the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship anchored just offshore this beautiful expanse of white sand Friday, vacationers stretched out on beach chairs in the sun, sipped cold beer and pina coladas with pineapple slices on the rim and listened to Haitian folk music.

The beach resort of Labadee is just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Port-au-Prince, but it's a world away from the devastation of the Haitian capital, where some 200,000 people are believed dead in an earthquake.

The cruise ships that stop here have become the center of a controversy: Should vacationers relax and have fun with so much suffering elsewhere on the island? Or would it be worse to halt the port calls and deprive locals of what they earn from tourism?

KABUL – Militants hiding among demonstrators fired on police Saturday, sparking a gunbattle in the middle of a protest over the deaths of four men in a NATO-Afghan raid, officials said. At least two people were wounded.

NATO and Afghan police have said the four killed late Wednesday were insurgents, but villagers in the Qara Bagh district in Ghazni province insist they were civilians.

Protesters have taken to the streets for three straight days and have blocked traffic on a highway that links the major cities of Kabul and Kandahar, forcing trucks and vehicles to wait for hours.

BAGHDAD – The U.S. Marine Corps is leaving Iraq.

The U.S. military says the Marines will formally handover control on Saturday of Iraq's western desert to the Army during a ceremony at Camp Ramadi, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad.

The handover marks the end of the Marine mission in an area once considered a main battleground of the insurgency.

COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka's opposition warned on Saturday of possible vote-rigging and violence by the ruling party ahead of next week's presidential election as both sides wound up campaigning.

Ahead of the final rallies later on Saturday, opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka predicted that the ruling party, led by President Mahinda Rajapakse, would use violence to intimidate his supporters in the Tuesday vote.

"They want to create violence and discourage people from voting. A lower turnout will help rigging," he told reporters, adding that he expected fake voters and forged ballot papers to also be used.

KABUL – A provincial governor escaped an assassination attempt while traveling to inspect a school southwest of Kabul, but four Afghan soldiers in his convoy were killed in the bombing, a spokesman said Saturday.

Halim Fidai, the governor of Wardak province, was on his way to the school after meeting with elders Friday in the Jagatu district when the roadside bomb exploded.

The governor was unharmed, but four Afghan soldiers in a different vehicle were killed and another was wounded, according to the governor's spokesman Shahidullah Shahid, who also was in the convoy.

CARACAS, Venezuela – A Venezuelan TV channel that takes a critical line against Hugo Chavez could be forced off cable if it doesn't carry mandatory government programming including some of the president's speeches, a lawyer for the channel said Friday.

The government forced Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, off the open airwaves in 2007 by refusing to renew its broadcast license, and the channel subsequently moved to cable under the name Radio Caracas Television International.

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia said on Saturday it would deploy a specialist air traffic control team to quake-ravaged Haiti following a US request to help restore order at the nation's jammed airports.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said a group of specially-trained military air traffic marshals would leave next week for the devastated Caribbean nation in a bid to improve the flow of aid and supplies.

There are over 1,400 flights waiting to get into the country as tens of thousands of desperate people struggle to meet even the most basic needs.

BEIJING – China's top leaders say Tibet's development must include Tibetan areas in neighboring provinces — a move likely aimed at tying the region tighter to the rest of the country after deadly riots two years ago.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told the first high-level meeting on Tibet in nine years that the development would require hard work to prevent 'penetration and sabotage' by separatists working for Tibet's independence, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported late Friday.

LA PAZ, Bolivia – Evo Morales has begun a second term as Bolivia's president by declaring colonialism dead in the Andean nation.

The Aymara Indian was sworn in wearing a sash on which traditional national figures were replaced by two 19th-century heroes of indigenous resistance.

Morales says he has sought to eradicate all vestiges of colonial repression and discrimination against Bolivia's indigenous majority. He was re-elected by a landslide in December.

In 2008, he expelled the U.S. ambassador and DEA from the world's No. 3. cocaine-producing country. U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis represented Washington at Friday's ceremony.

GLASGOW (AFP) – Steven Whittaker has told Rangers manager Walter Smith he can be the answer to the Ibrox club's striker crisis as they prepare to face Hearts at Ibrox on Saturday.

The utility man struck a double in extra-time at Ibrox on Tuesday to sink Hamilton's Scottish Cup hopes.

The win booked their place in the last 16 of the competition but came at a price with forwards Nacho Novo and Kenny Miller both limping out with injuries.

And with top scorer Kris Boyd already out following a hernia operation and Steven Naismith still struggling for fitness it leaves Smith with few options up front.