Ramallah  - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday evening, for their last talks before his ruling Kadima party chooses a new leader.

The parley would be business as usual, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, adding the Palestinians would work with Israel's prime minister for as long as he continued to serve.

"Leaving or not leaving," Erekat told Voice of Palestine Radio, "we work with the prime minister of Israel and we will continue to do so."

Stockholm - After two years in office, Sweden's centre-right coalition trails the opposition by over 15 per cent, according to a new survey published Tuesday.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's four-party coalition has dropped from 48.2 per cent to 38.8 per cent, according to the Synovate poll commissioned by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

Reinfeldt was slated to outline his government's policies later Tuesday during the formal opening of parliament after the summer recess.

In an op-ed piece in Dagens Nyheter's Tuesday edition, Reinfeldt and the leaders of the other three parties in his coalition unveiled plans to slash income taxes by 15 billion kronor (2.2 billion dollars) as of 2009.

Kiev/Moscow - Ukraine's ruling coalition collapsed, the parliamentary speaker said Tuesday, in a feud between between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko over whether Russia or the West holds the former Soviet country's future.

"I officially announce the collapse of the coalition of democratic forces," Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party, which aspires to join NATO and the European Union, pulled out of the shared coalition with Tymoshenko's bloc at the beginning of September after she paired with the pro- Russian opposition to oppose some of the president's policies.

Kuala Lumpur, Sept. 16: Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is insisting that he has the numbers to form the next Government.

Though he refused to give details about how many Barisan Nasional members would join him, he told reporters in Petaling Jaya on the sidelines of celebrations to mark the 45th Malaysia Day, that he had sought a meeting with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to discuss a smooth transition of power.

The Pakatan gathering at the Kelana Jaya Stadium last night drew thousands of supporters.

Tel Aviv - Shaul Mofaz is the most hawkish member of Israel's ruling Kadima faction, something he hopes will propel him to the top spot when the centrist party holds its leadership primary on September 17.

A former military chief of staff who became defence minister almost as soon as he left the army, Mofaz is basing his campaign on Israel's security concerns.

Tel Aviv - The leadership contest for Israel's ruling Kadima party is a distorted mirror of the race to choose the candidate for the Democratic party in the US.

The main difference however is that in this case it is the male candidate, Shaul Mofaz, who is assailing his female opponent for her perceived lack of experience, and the female candidate, Tzipi Livni, who is promising to bring a new style of politics.

The other two candidates in the race, Meir Sheetrit and Avi Dichter, are not given much chance of winning.