London- Firefighters in Britain had a couple of interesting encounters on Wednesday: a naked burglar stuck in a chimney and a runaway hamster.

The burglar had to be freed from a chimney at a supermarket in Wigan near Manchester in northern England.

The 22-year-old suspect, who had lost his clothes trying to squeeze his own way out, was treated in hospital, reports said.

Maputo  - The chief executive of Mozambique's state-owned airport management company Aeroportos de Mocambique (AdM) was being held by police Wednesday on suspicion of defrauding the company of millions of dollars.

Diodino Cambaza, 44, was arrested late Tuesday, after an investigation by the attorney general found evidence that Cambaza and several other board members, including the chief financial officer, had swindled company funds since 2005 when he was sworn in as the new chairman.

The financial officer was also arrested.

Berlin  - Germany affirmed its military operations in Afghanistan on Wednesday, two days after a Taliban suicide bomber killed two German soldiers and five Afghan children in the northern city of Kunduz.

"Reconstruction in Afghanistan is impossible without security," government deputy spokesman Thomas Steg said.

He said German Chancellor Angela Merkel had sent condolences to the families of all seven bomb victims.

Islamabad  - Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta confirmed for the first time Wednesday that his government had held talks with Taliban representatives in Saudi Arabia.

But he warned that the reconciliation process would move ahead only if militants were "ready to put down their weapons," accept the Afghan constitution and "live a peaceful life."

"But we are at the beginning of the process," he told reporters in Islamabad after a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi. He declined to give any details of the talks.

Baghdad  - Five people were killed and nine injured in attacks in Mosul and Baghdad Wednesday.

In western Mosul, four civilians were killed and three injured in a car bomb explosion, a police source said. He told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that the explosion occurred in the al-Thawra neighborhood.

Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh, lies 405 kilometres north of Baghdad.

New Delhi  - At least 24 people including 23 women were drowned when an overcrowded boat capsized in India's eastern state of Bihar on Wednesday, police said.

The boat ferrying 28 agricultural workers capsized on a small river in Khagaria district located over 200 kilometres east of state capital Patna.