Gaza City - At least two people were killed Wednesday evening in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, raising the Palestinian death toll of five days of heavy Israeli air raides to at least 393,

Cairo - Arab foreign ministers, at an emergency meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, appealed to the UN Security Council to halt Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The meeting of the foreign ministers of the 22-nation Arab League took place as Israeli airstrikes continued for the fifth day against the Islamist Hamas movement, which governs the Gaza Strip. The casualty toll in the densely populated salient has reached almost 390 dead, most of them militants, and 1,800 injured.

"We urge the Security Council not to fall under any pressure and take an immediate decision to stop the Israeli attacks on Gaza, " said Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa at the opening of the meeting.

Linz/Vilnius  - Both Vilnius and Linz planned to start their terms as 2009's joint European Capitals of Culture in the waning hours of 2008. But the residents of Linz couldn't even wait that long.

Work began Wednesday afternoon on a four-metre tall clock display, one of 220 cultural projects planned across Europe throughout the year to market the city's year as a cultural capital. Appropriately enough, since work will begin in 2008 but end in 2009, the display comes with the motto Time is Being Made.

Vilnius has 120 such projects planned, though none of them seem to have started in 2008.

Helsinki - The northern Finnish city of Oulu cancelled its New Year's Eve fireworks display Wednesday over strong winds and a storm warning.

Harare  - A Zimbabwean High Court judge is to rule Friday on whether criminal proceedings against human rights activist Jestina Mukoko on charges of plotting to topple President Robert Mugabe's government should be halted until circumstances surrounding her kidnapping and subsequent arrest are established.

This follows an urgent application filed Wednesday by Mukoko's lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, seeking an order compelling the police and the attorney general to identify the people who abducted her.

Mukoko was seized early on the morning of December 3 from her home in Norton, some 40 kilometres south-west of the capital Harare. After the abduction she could not be accounted for three weeks.

Tehran  - The Iranian Culture Ministry on Wednesday closed down the reformist daily newspaper Kargozaran (Public Servants) over a critical report about the militant Palestinian group Hamas, the off