New York  - Tiffany & Co, the world's second-largest retailer of luxury jewelry, on Monday reported lower fourth-quarter profits that beat analysts' expectations, sending its shares up 15 per cent.

To deal with lower sales in these tough economic times, the company said that it cut costs and jobs, but did not cut prices.

Net income dropped 76 per cent to 31.1 million dollars, while revenue fell 20 per cent to 841.2 million dollars in the three months ended January 31.

Washington  - Investigators suspect that overloading might have caused the crash of a small passenger plane that killed 14 people, including seven children Sunday, broadcaster ABC reported Monday.

But because the single engine Pilatus PC-12 was not required to carry a black box recording device, it may be difficult to ascertain the exact cause of the deadly disaster.

San Francisco  - The Mt Redoubt volcano in Alaska erupted for the first time since 1989 sending a huge plume of ash over the Arctic region, the Alaska Volcano Observatory said Monday.

Geologist Tina Neal said that five separate eruptions began late Sunday night with each lasting 10 to 20 minutes. The plume reached an altitude of more than 20,000 metres, but was drifting north, away from the city of Anchorage about 160 kilometres to the southwest. However, it forced the cancellation of at least 19 Alaska Airlines flights.

Washington  - Two Discovery space shuttle astronauts began their third spacewalk Monday to complete maintenance work on the International Space Station.

During the planned six-and-a-half hour spacewalk, astronauts Joseph Acaba and Richard Arnold were to reposition an equipment cart, complete the deployment of an external cargo mounting mechanism, lubricate the space station's robotic arm and reconfigure some cables that power the station's gyroscopes.

This is the second spacewalk for both Acaba and Arnold and the final one of the current mission.

Washington - US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday said he would use a combination of private and public funds to remove up to 1 trillion dollars in toxic mortgage assets off the balance sheets of US banks, in the government's latest bid to end the financial crisis.

The new effort will include up to 100 billion dollars in government funds, Geithner said as he unveiled the much-anticipated details of a new programme that has been developed over the last month.

The Hague - Between 800 and 1,000 journalists from around the world were expected to attend the international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague at the end of the month, Dutch officials said Monday.

Some 500 journalists had already registered to cover the gathering of representatives from at least 75 countries that is to focus on the future of Afghanistan, a spokesman for The Hague municipality told reporters.