Soelden, Austria - Daniel Albrecht won the men's alpine skiing season-opener on Sunday when he dominated a giant slalom ahead of fellow-Swiss Didier Cuche.

Albrecht clocked a combined total of 2 minutes 15.78 seconds from two runs on the glacier course to claimed his second career win.

Cuche had 2:15.92 and Ted Ligety of the US placed third, far off the pace in 2:17.03 minutes.

Munich - Plans for a costly mass in Rome to celebrate the birthday of Pope Benedict's elder brother have been criticized by a Catholic lay group in Germany, the weekly news magazine Focus reported Sunday.

Georg Ratzinger, a retired priest and former director of music at Regensburg Cathedral in Germany, is to celebrate his 85th birthday on January 15.

The Catholic Diocese of Regensburg plans to spend 100,000 dollars flying 90 boy choristers and 37 musicians to Rome to perform a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mass in the Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican especially for him.

Monsignor Ratzinger lives in the city of Regensburg and used to conduct the boys' choir.

Tehran - The Iranian parliament motion Sunday demanded that Interior Minister Ali Kordan be impeached for having presented it with a faked honorary doctorate from Oxford University, ISNA news agency reported.

Parliament will debate on November 4 whether the impeachment would be accepted or not, ISNA said.

In a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month, Kordan admitted that the certificate from the prestigious British university which he presented to parliament was a fake.

But he also claimed that he was victim of a swindle by a man who allegedly posed as a representative in Tehran of the university.

Presentation of false documents, especially in government service, is a crime punishable by a imprisonment in Iran.

Jerusalem - Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni postponed by several hours a scheduled meeting with President Shimon Peres Sunday in which she was expected to recommend new elections as she had failed to form a new governing coalition.

Livni had been slated to meet Peres at 2 pm (1200 GMT) but at the last minute received a phone call from Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, who was meeting the president and who asked her to delay her visit to Peres' official residence, Israel Radio reported.

It was unclear whether Peres or Itzik were attempting to intervene and conduct last-minute mediation between Livni and prospective coalition partners who had already refused to join a government headed by her.

Islamabad - The body was discovered Sunday of a brother of local Taliban top commander Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan's north- west, officials said.

Yahya Mehsud's body was found in the Domail area of Bannu district bordering the restive tribal region where the feared militant commander is believed to be holed up with hundreds of his men.

"Yes, it is confirmed that the body is that of Mehsud's brother," a police officer told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone from Bannu.

Unlike his brother, Yahya was not involved in militant activities, and was believed to have been killed by his rivals or opponents of Baitullah Mehsud."

Reykjavik/Stockholm - An online petition recently launched in Iceland protesting the British government's recent use of anti- terrorist legislation to freeze Icelandic bank assets had Sunday gathered over 50,000 names.

The website also features photos of Icelanders holding signs with texts like "I am not a terrorist Mr Brown" and "Gordon Darling We are not to blame," with references to British Minister Gordon Brown and British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling.

The website, www.indefence.is, was set up to protest what was perceived as a "devastating attack" on Iceland after the British government earlier this month used legislation from 2001 to freeze assets in Icelandic banks.