Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left on Tuesday for a 10-day visit to the United States and France. After a procedural halt at Frankfurt, he is scheduled to leave for New York on Tuesday for the 63rd session of the United National General Assembly (UNGA). 

This will be his second address to the UN General Assembly, on Friday. He missed out the UNGA in 2006 and 2007. 

New York - French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Tuesday a quicker pace in reforming the UN Security Council and the world's group of eight leading industrialized nations (G-8) in order to meet the demands of emerging countries.

Sarkozy said the world is still governed by 20th-century institutions in a 21st century world.

"Let today's major powers and the powers of tomorrow unite to shoulder together the responsibilities their influence gives them in world affairs," Sarkozy said in an address to the UN General Assembly.

Paris - Other industrial nations besides the United States should begin drawing up plans to shore up their financial sectors, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said in an article published Tuesday in the French daily Le Monde.

Madrid - Two suspected members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA were detained Tuesday in central France, media reports quoted Spanish police sources as saying.

The man and woman were captured as they were about to steal a car, the sources said, while other reports said they were arrested in a tent as they camped in a forested area west of Lyon.

The couple, armed and carrying false identity documents and tools for stealing cars, did not resist arrest. Police seized two stolen cars, reports said.

The woman was believed to be Maria Lizarraga Merino, a former member of the pro-ETA youth organization Segi. The man's identity was not immediately known.

The two are believed to be linked with the logistical branch of ETA.

Madrid - Two suspected members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA were detained Tuesday in central France, media reports quoted Spanish police sources as saying.

Paris - About one-fourth of the 300,000 people working for the French Post Office were striking on Tuesday against the government's plan to turn it into a public corporation, French radio said, citing numbers provided by management.

Post Office director Jean-Paul Bailly has said that the post office needs some 3 billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) to modernize.

However, trade unions and a majority of the French public are firmly against his plan because they fear it will lead to a complete privatization of postal services.