Islamabad, Sept 3: PPP Co-chairman and presidential candidate Asif Ali Zardari has reportedly asked the federal government to plan residential apartments for journalists at “affordable installments”.

The ministries of Housing and Information should consult journalist organisations to devise criteria for eligibility and should ensure merit and transparency in the allotments, the Daily Times quoted him as saying here last evening.

Taipei  - Taiwan's former security chief admitted Tuesday to giving former president Chen Shui-bian two sensitive documents concerning alleged money-laundering implicating Chen's family.

"I felt pained in the past 20 days over the case and I believe honesty is the best policy, so I decided to tell the truth," Yeh Sheng-mao told a hastily called news conference in Taipei.

Yeh, who was indicted on Thursday for covering up the snowballing money-laundering scandal, said he received a report from international investigators on January 29 saying Chen's family was suspected of laundering money through bank accounts set up by his son and daughter-in-law in the Cayman Islands.

London, September 2: A mystery Wikipedia user had overhauled the entry for Sarah Palin hours before John McCain made the surprising announcement of her selection as Republican vice-presidential nominee.

The user who made about 30 edits to the biographical article on the website worked under the name Young Trigg.

Islamabad, Sept. 2: Former Pakistan Prime Minister and chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Nawaz Sharif, has told the former Governor Punjab Malik Ghulam Mustafa Khar that his party would not compromise on its principled stand.

According to the sources, Sharif said the nation had given the PML-N a mandate in the February 18 elections to restore the deposed judges and undo Musharraf's extra-constitutional steps.

Sharif also said that he pulled out his party from the ruling coalition because pledges and agreements were not honoured.

St Paul, Minnesota - Police made a reported 284 arrests during a protest rally and march past the national convention of the centre-right US Republican Party.

Monday's rally started at the Minnesota State Capitol in St Paul and climaxed with a march past the nearby Xcel Centre, an ice hockey arena where the Republican presidential nominating convention opened Monday.

Tokyo - Taro Aso, general secretary of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and former contender for the LDP helm, Tuesday expressed his intention to run for the party leadership in a bid to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

"I have an idea of what I have to do, and I'd like to execute it," Aso said at a press conference Tuesday.

The 67-year-old hawkish politician was seen as a forerunner to succeed Fukuda when he was appointed as the premier's right-hand man last month in a Cabinet reshuffle.