London - Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong says he is afraid of being attacked by spectators if he competes in the 2009 edition of the race.

"I don't want to enter an unsafe situation but you see this stuff coming out of France. There are some aggressive, angry emotions. If you believe what you read my personal safety could be in jeopardy," Armstrong told Tuesday's Guardian newspaper.

"Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining that road. I try to believe that people, even if they don't like me, will let the race unfold."

London - The main parties in the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland ended five months of political stalemate in the province Tuesday by agreeing a deal that maps out the road ahead for a completion of the peace process.

First Minister Peter Robinson, who also leads the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and his deputy, Martin McGuinness of the Catholic Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, said regular meetings of the executive, or cabinet, would resume on Thursday.

Berlin - Schalke midfielder Jermaine Jones has won a place in midfield for Germany against England in Berlin on Wednesday.

Jones, who missed out on the Germany squad for Euro 2008, gets his chance in defensive midfield after the omission of Torsten Frings.

It will be a first start for the 27-year-old son of a US serviceman who grew up in Frankfurt.

He was the only definite German starter named by team manager Oliver Bierhoff Tuesday for the friendly international.

London, Nov. 18 : Senior Brit-Indian Labour MP Keith Vaz has said that the battle against knife crimes in the United Kingdom is “clearly not working”.

Vaz, the chairman of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee, said the latest stabbing at a music awards show in London showed the “urgent” need for action.

London, Nov 18 : Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor, accused of attempted car bombings in London and at Glasgow Airport has admitted that according to English law he is a terrorist.

Bilal Abdulla, 29, is alleged to have crashed into the airport in a Jeep laden with petrol and gas canisters.

Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor working in Paisley, Scotland, said the attack on the airport came “out of the blue” and he only threw Molotov cocktails because he was trying to get rid of them.

London, Nov. 18 : Former Test cricket umpire Dickie Bird and retired chat show host Sir Michael Parkinson were conferred Honorary Doctors of Letters degrees by the University of Huddersfield in Yorkshire on Monday.

University Chancellor and former Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart bestowed the honours on Sir Michael and Bird after they donned mortar boards and gowns and joined 70 graduates in a parade through their beloved Barnsley led by a brass band.