Head of the Directorate of Labor Gissur Pétursson said 20 of the 29 foreign-born workers, who were in a bus accident in east Iceland on Sunday, are not legally registered in the country.

Pétursson also claimed that legally obligated tariffs had not been paid in relation to some of the workers’ salaries this year, Fréttabladid reports.

The workers in question are participating in the Kárahnjúkar dam project in the eastern highlands on behalf of the contractor company Arnarfell. They were hired through sub-contractors, the German company Hunnebeck Polska and the Icelandic companies GT-verktakar ehf. and Spöng ehf.

Pétursson said the workers who were not legally registered in the country may not be entitled to the health services they require after the accident.

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Taliban militants agreed today to free 19 South Korean church volunteers held hostage for more than a month after Seoul agreed to end all missionary work and keep a promise to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

The agreement, reached in direct talks between Taliban negotiators and South Korean officials meeting in central Afghanistan, ends a hostage crisis that had exposed the growing security problems facing Afghanistan.

Relatives of the hostages in South Korea welcomed news of the impending release.

“I would like to dance,” said Cho Myung-ho, mother of 28-year-old hostage Lee Joo-yeon.

South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun said from Seoul, the South Korean capital, that the deal had been reached “on the condition that South Korea withdraws troops by the end of year and South Korea suspends missionary work in Afghanistan.”

There was no word on when the captives would be released.

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A strong earthquake has hit fire-ravaged southern Greece.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute says it had a magnitude of five.

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A suicide bomber blew himself up next to a group of NATO troops helping to build a bridge in eastern Afghanistan today, killing three soldiers and wounding six others, the alliance said in a statement.

The bomber was also killed in the blast, the statement said. NATO did not disclose the nationalities of the victims or the exact location of the blast.

Most foreign troops in the east of the country are American.

The attack came a day after fighting between NATO troops and Taliban fighters killed eight soldiers — including six westerners — in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

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Authorities in Greece have intensified efforts to find out what caused forest fires that have left more than 60 dead.

Anti-terrorist squads have been questioning some of the 32 suspected arsonists arrested so far, as new fires continue to break out around Greece.

A state of emergency has been declared and a 1m euro (£678,000) reward has been offered to help catch arsonists.

Since Friday, blazes have ravaged the country from Evia island north of Athens to the Peloponnese in the south.

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A Turkish deputy from Tansu Ciller’s True Path Party (DYP) yesterday revealed that Turkish paramilitary organizations are responsible for arson fires in Greece’s islands while, at the same time, an article published in the pro-government Turkish daily “Yeni Safak” provocatively boasted in its title: “We Burned Rhodes.”

According to the DYP deputy Sedat Bucak, the perpetrator of these fires was Abdullah Chatli, the leader of the extremist group “Grey Wolves”. Chatli was recently killed in a notorious car accident in Turkey which brought to light the relations between Turkish mafia and the government.

These revelations came to confirm reports the Greek authorities already had in their hands, according to which, the fires that have devastated the Greek islands every summer were an act of arson performed by specially-trained forces of Turkish agents.

Greece’s alternate Foreign Minister George Papandreou stated that the Turkish deputy’s statements are “especially worrisome and show that various sabotage raids have been committed in our country with Turkish instigation.”

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A former Soviet Communist Party official in Estonia has been charged with genocide for his alleged role in deportations to Siberian labour camps.

Arnold Meri, who is now 88, was a highly-decorated soldier in the Soviet Red Army, and is a cousin of the Baltic state’s late President, Lennart Meri.

He is said to have organised the 1949 deportation of 251 civilians from Hiiumaa Island, off the west coast.

Mr Meri has admitted participating, but says he played only a minor role.

Estonia’s security police say more than 40 of those deported either died on the way to, or in, the Siberian camps.

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Trade and climate are set to be key topics for German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she starts a visit to China.

China’s economy has grown considerably in recent years, but its development has also caused a significant rise in pollution including greenhouse gases.

The chancellor will meet China’s President Hu Jintao as well as Premier Wen Jiabao during her three-day trip.

Mrs Merkel will then go to Japan, which replaces Germany as the head of the G8 group of richest nations in 2008.

She is expected to meet Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

On the eve of her arrival in China, Beijing rejected reports in a German news magazine that hackers with links to China’s military had infiltrated German government computers.

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Click link below to download to your mobile phone to show others who do not have internet access etc

http://www.filefactory.com/file/cc813d/

Nice to see the immigrants show their gratitude to their hosts who let them in and gave them free houses/food/money etc

Click link below to download to your mobile phone to show others who do not have internet access etc

http://www.filefactory.com/file/1e1649/