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India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party expelled Jaswant Singh, former finance and foreign minister, party chief Rajnath Singh said today from the northern town of Shimla.

 The move by the Hindu-nationalist party comes after Singh praised Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of neighboring Pakistan, in his recent book on the leader, “Jinnah -- India, Partition, Independence.”

The government must do more to ensure arms exports are not being used against civilians in war zones, a joint report by four select committees says.

The committees on arms export control welcomed Foreign Secretary David Miliband's decision earlier this year to revoke export licences to Israel.

But there are fears arms exported from the UK have been used against civilians in Sri Lanka's civil war.

The government said it shared the committees' concerns.

MOSCOW, The missing Russian vessel, the Arctic Sea, had been hijacked by a group of Estonians, Latvians and Russians, and was rescued by the Russian navy, Russia's defense minister said Tuesday.

 Anatoly Serdyukov said the Russian crew was rescued without a single shot, and the navy arrested eight people in connection with the hijacking that occurred in Swedish territorial waters, news agencies reported.

 Dr. Palitha Kohona, will shortly assumed duties as the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, New York.

Dr. Kohona before assuming the current position he was the Foreign Secretary, Special Advisor on the Peace Process and Secretary-General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) and was a member of the Government delegation which participated in the Peace Talks with the LTTE in 2006.

He has served as the Chief of the United Nations Treaty Section, New York. He held this position since 1995. The Treaty Section is responsible for discharging the Secretariat’s mandate to register treaties under Article 102 of the Charter and the depositary functions of the Secretary-General for Multilateral Treaties e.g. The Land Mines Convention, Kyoto Protocol, Bio-Safety Protocol, Treaties on Terrorism and Organised Crime and Human Rights. The Treaty Section is the custodian of over 500 multilateral treaties, covering the spectrum of international interaction.