London, Aug. 13 : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe''s Zanu-PF party has claimed that it has inked a power-sharing deal with a dissident faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] to create a new government in Zimbabwe.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the agreement with Arthur Mutambara is expected to sideline Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main MDC bloc, who beat Mr Mugabe in the first round of the presidential election in March, taking just short of 50 per cent of the vote.

London, Aug 13 : People who think that an octopus is an eight-armed creature need a reality check, for scientists have now claimed that octopuses effectively have ‘six arms and two legs’.

Claire Little, a marine expert from the Weymouth Sea Life Centre in Dorset has denied the long held assumption and said that two of the organism’s tentacle-like limbs are actually legs.

In a new study, scientists at Sea Life centres across Europe, discovered that octopuses use their two rearmost limbs for moving around the sea bed, and it’s other six limbs are in fact meant for feeding purposes.

Scientists from 20 centres across Europe collected data from 2,000 observations of common octopuses for getting the results.

New Delhi - India's Tata Group's retail arm Trent announced Tuesday it was entering into a franchise agreement with British retailer Tesco to expand its hypermarket business in India.

The franchise agreement with Tesco would allow Trent to access the former's extensive retail expertise and technical capability to expand its Indian hypermarket business which operates under the name of Star Bazaar, a company press release said.

There are currently four Star Bazaar outlets, two in Mumbai and one each in Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Trent plans to expand this to 50 stores across Indian by 2013.

London, Aug 12 : The second meeting of the ministerial-level India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue was held in London.

Finance Minister P. Chidambarm led the Indian side, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling represented the UK on Monday.

The two sides discussed global macro economic issues in the context of the rising fuel, food and energy costs. The matter of climate change and enhancing cooperation in the filed of renewable sources of energy was also discussed.

London, Aug. 12 : A British soldier''s harrowing account of a merciless massacre that took place during World War Two has been auctioned off for 320 pounds, 65 years after the event.

Private Arthur Haines was in a Singapore military hospital with malaria when invading Japanese troops stormed the building and killed more than 200 people.

Although his life was spared, the soldier witnessed the gruesome killings of his comrades, doctors and nurses who were either bayoneted, shot or suffocated to death.

After being taken prisoner, Haines, 24, managed to jot down the bloody episode on a four page letter.

London, August 12 : A new research has rubbished the charges made against environmentalists that they destroy the lives of poor people in rainforests and other wild areas by taking over their land in the name of conservation.

According to a report in New Scientist, the research, which maps poverty and human environmental impact around the world, has been conducted by Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

“The vast majority of the world’s poor people live in extremely urban areas. Only a small percentage live in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild,” said Redford.