New Delhi, Oct 16 : The Winter Session of parliament will begin on Friday. The session will have 24 sittings spread over 36 days till November 21.

During the sitting, 71 legislative, two financial and one non-legislative items have been identified to be taken up.

Sixteen bills would be introduced, including the Prevention of Corruption Amendment bill, the Representation of the People, second amendment bill, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education bill and Prevention of Money Laundering amendment bill.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayliar Ravi said, the opposition parties have been requested to cooperate with the Government in completing the listed business during the session.

Wellington - Winston Peters, leader of the nationalist New Zealand First party and former foreign minister, vowed Thursday to fight to cut immigration if he is in the government after next month's general election.

"Immigration numbers will be cut to ensure Kiwis do not have to compete with immigrants for jobs as our economy goes into decline," he said at a campaign meeting in Nelson, a coastal city on the north end of the South Island.

"When times are tough internationally, immigrants are attracted to New Zealand like moths to a neon light," Peters said.

The Election Commission, ostensibly, is a divided on the issue of holding polls in Jammu and Kashmir and has maintained silence on the issue. This seems to have piqued the political parties causing their outburst at the commission.

Considering the precarious political scenario in J-K, it is perceivable that the election commission cannot afford to be indecisive on this issue. Yet the issue remains unsolved.

Washington - A supporter of Republican presidential candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin went beyond a bumper sticker and named his new born daughter after the duo.

The child's name, Sarah McCain Palin Ciptak, however was a surprise to her mother. The parents had agreed to name the girl Ava Grace, but father Mark Ciptak instead filled out the birth certificate with the political name to draw attention to the candidates, he told local newspaper the Kingsport Times News.

He only later told his wife, Layla.

Washington - Doctors examining US Vice President Dick Cheney discovered an abnormal rhythm in his heart Wednesday and ordered him to undergo treatment, the White House said.

Cheney has cancelled plans to attend a campaign event in Illinois to go to George Washington University Hospital for the outpatient procedure involving an electrical impulse to restore a normal rhythm in his heart's upper chamber, Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said.

Banja Luka - Bosnian Serb lawmakers voted Wednesday to resist closer ties with the rest of the country, underlining Bosnia- Herzegovina's paralysis as it seeks to join the European Union.

A resolution by the Bosnian Serb republic's parliament also called for fewer powers for the international administrator who polices Bosnia's divided politics under the 1995 Dayton peace agreement.

The crisis flared from a UN General Assembly speech last month by the Muslim member of Bosnia's three-member presidency in which he accused Bosnian Serbs of genocide during the 
1992-95 ethnic war.