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A leading rail union called today for an urgent inquiry after a laptop containing personal details of 150,000 workers in the industry was stolen.According to The Independent, the computer was in a bag taken from an employee of Deloitte which until recently was the external auditor for the RPMI, which administers railway pension schemes.

A helpline has been set up for members of several railway pension schemes although the company stressed that the data on the laptop did not contain bank account details and said there were a number of security measures in place.

Gerry Doherty, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staff Association, said there should be an inquiry because of the large number of people whose personal details have been lost.

Doherty also complained that the computer was stolen weeks ago but the union was only told about the incident in the past few days.

at least 4,181 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,385 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

The AP count is one fewer than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.

The candidate from Thailand’s main opposition party has been re-elected governor of the capital, Bangkok, leaving his rival from the main party in the national coalition government trailing far behind.

Incumbent Apirak Kosayodhin from the Democrat Party won 991,081 votes in Sunday’s election, in which only 54 percent of the 4.09 million eligible voters turned out, the capital’s administration said on its website, www.bangkok.go.th.

Prapat Jongsanguan, candidate of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and an ex-chief of the city subway regulatory body, won 543,488 and Chuvit Kamolvisit, a massage parlour owner running on an anti-corruption ticket, came third with 340,616.

Apirak, 47, has pledged to improve the environment and quality of life in the city of 10 million, focusing on traffic, infrastructure and education.

The 47-year-old marketing expert, who ran firms selling potato chips and mobile phones before entering politics, won nearly 80,000 votes more than four years ago and beat Prapat in all 50 constituencies, some of them once PPP strongholds.

The PPP draws much of its strength from outside Bangkok, particularly among rural voters.

The race to manage Thailand’s biggest city was a gimmicky affair, with one candidate campaigning dressed as a Shanghai gangster.

Chuvit made headlines last week for beating up a television interviewer after a programme, while another candidate’s campaign manager drowned while washing in a filthy canal as a publicity stunt to highlight the need for better sanitation.

A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of accessory to murder and was sentenced to eight months in prison for his role in the killing of four Iraqi prisoners who were bound, blindfolded, shot and dumped in a canal.

Spc. Steven Ribordy, 25, of Salina, Kansas, also will receive a bad conduct discharge from the Army as part of a plea deal. He also agreed to testify against other members of his unit.

The prosecutor, Capt. John Merriam, had pressed for the maximum five years in prison.

“The execution of prisoners is arguably the greatest crime,” Merriam said at Ribordy’s court martial. “It betrays everything soldiers stand for.”

Ribordy testified that he had helped stand guard as the prisoners were killed by other members of his patrol in early 2007. He said he approached the scene after the shots were fired and saw three bodies lying in a pool of blood, and then the fourth nearer to the canal.

Ribordy told the court he saw three other members of the patrol — Sgt. John E. Hatley, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Mayo, and Sgt. Michael P. Leahy Jr. — at the scene and smelled gunpowder in the air.

“They all seemed calm,” he said.

Ribordy testified that he helped move one of the bodies to the edge of the canal, then push it in.

“I wasn’t ordered or asked in any way, shape or form to move the body,” he told the court. “I wanted to get it done and get out of there — I didn’t want anybody getting in trouble.”

He told judge Col. Timothy Grammel that he was now sorry for his actions.

“At the time I believed I did the right thing,” he said. “The reason I didn’t say anything was because of loyalty to my comrades.”

Initially charged with conspiracy to commit murder, which carries a possible life sentence, the charges were reduced Thursday to the lesser accessory to murder as part of Ribordy’s plea agreement.

All seven soldiers allegedly involved were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq. They are now part of the Germany-based 172nd Infantry Brigade.

Last month, another soldier charged with conspiracy to commit murder, Spc. Belmor Ramos, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven months in prison and given a dishonorable discharge. Ramos, 23, testified he had stood guard as the killings were carried out.

Ramos, of Clearfield, Utah, was given the relatively lenient sentence as part of a deal under which he will also testify against others alleged to have been involved in the killings.

Ramos and Ribordy were in the same Humvee during the killings — Ramos manning the machine-gun turret and Ribordy at the wheel, Ribordy testified.

At Ramos’ trial and August hearings for Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham and Sgt. Charles Quigley, witnesses said four Iraqi men were bound, blindfolded, shot in the head and dumped in a Baghdad canal — killings prosecutors said were in retribution for casualties in the unit.

Cunningham and Quigley are awaiting decisions from their Article 32 hearings, the equivalent of a civilian preliminary hearing, to determine whether their cases will go to trial.

In those hearings this year, soldiers who were on the patrol said that the four unidentified Iraqis — likely Sunnis — were taken into custody after a shootout with insurgents and taken to the unit’s operating base near Baghdad. Later that night, members of the patrol took the four men out to a remote location and killed them, witnesses said.

Hatley, Mayo, and Leahy have all been charged with premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and obstruction of justice.

They face a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for them to be sent before a court-martial, but no dates for the hearing have been set.

Hatley and Leahy were also charged with one count each of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder in a separate killing near Baghdad in January 2007.

Leahy was also charged with being an accessory after the fact in that incident, a September statement from the Army said, without providing more details.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday said she would accept any conditions to salvage a pro-West coalition amid fears the pro-Russian opposition would seize control.

“We will close our eyes and accept any ultimatums in order to preserve Ukraine’s strategic orientation, to preserve the parliament and not to throw the country into a new crisis,” Tymoshenko said in parliament.

Tymoshenko has been in a spiralling row with President Viktor Yushchenko sparked by differences over how Ukraine should react to Russia’s August war in Georgia.

She warned the political deadlock was a result of actions by Yushchenko, who was doing “everything in order to lead the country towards early elections.”

“We will not allow this. We will see who across the country wants to have a democratic coalition, and who does not,” the prime minister said.

The coalition government collapsed in September when Yushchenko’s party pulled out in protest at Tymoshenko’s decision to support a bid by the pro-Russian opposition to reduce the president’s powers.

Talks on re-establishing the coalition have made little headway since, raising the prospect of new elections, which Tymoshenko warned Friday would likely be won by pro-Russian parties.

A win by Moscow-friendly politicians would put an end to Yushchenko’s efforts to bring the former Soviet republic of 47 million into the NATO military alliance and the European Union.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have had a love-hate relationship since 2004, when they joined forces in the so-called Orange Revolution to overturn the rigged election of pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych as president.

Their latest split was sparked by differences over how Ukraine should react to Russia’s war with Georgia, with the president’s allies accusing the prime minister of “treason” for not being sufficiently tough on Moscow.

Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych are all expected to compete in presidential elections due by 2010.

The premier is due to travel to Moscow on Thursday for talks with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on issues including a deal on the delivery of gas to Ukraine.

President Yushchenko is to visit Britain and Italy next week fresh from talks in Washington.

Iraq’s Sunnis on Tuesday marked the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, by filling mosques in greater numbers than in previous years due to the drop in violence.

Thousands across the country filled mosques at dawn and visited the graves of loved ones as they began the three-day festival marking the end of the holy month.

In Baghdad’s northern Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah, about 15,000 worshippers gathered at sunrise in the revered Sunni shrine of Abu Hanifa as U.S.-backed Sunni security forces known as Sons of Iraq stood guard at the shrine and a nearby cemetery.

“We are happy that we can leave our houses to perform prayers and visit our late beloved ones as we were not able to do so in the past,” said Umm Ammar, a 54-year old resident of Azamiyah who attended the early morning ceremony. “We pray to God that we will keep living in such an atmosphere with security all over the country.”

Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq over the past year, an improvement credited in part to a U.S. troop buildup as well as the decision by Sunni tribes and insurgents to turn against al-Qaida and back the United States.

The U.S.-funded Sunni movement faces a key test this week when the Shiite-led government begins to assume authority over the groups, also known as awakening councils.

In Mosul, a northern city that remains plagued by violence, men in long white robes filled mosques, and the city appeared quiet.

“People in mosques pray for peace on this sacred day,” said Ahmed Abdul-Rahman, 45-year-old photography shop owner. “The situation these days in Mosul does not allow for strolling in the streets in any area or traveling long distances.”

Sunnis and Shiites both celebrate Eid, but often begin the festival on different days. Shiites begin the holiday Wednesday.

In the past, that difference has sometimes underlined tensions between the two sects. This year, in an effort to minimize those tensions, the largely Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki set off the days celebrated by both Sunnis and Shiite as national holidays.

The list of products caught in China’s tainted milk scandal grew Friday to include baby cereal in Hong Kong and snack foods in Japan, while Taiwan reported three children and a mother with kidney stones in the island’s first cases possibly linked to the crisis.

The Japanese government also said it had suspended imports of milk and milk products from China, where some 54,000 children have developed kidney stones or other illnesses after drinking baby formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. Four deaths have been blamed on the tainted milk.

The latest problematic foods were Heinz baby cereal and Silang House steamed potato wasabi crackers. The Hong Kong government said in a statement Friday it found traces of melamine in the products, which were both made in mainland China.

Hong Kong urged the manufacturers to stop selling the products in the Chinese territory. Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Heinz ordered a recall of the baby cereal as a precautionary measure following the government’s announcement, it said in a statement on its Web site.

Hundreds of international food companies have set up operations in China in recent years, exposing them to the country’s notorious product safety problems. Melamine-tainted products have turned up in an increasing number of Chinese-made exports abroad — from candies to yogurt to rice balls.

In Japan, the Marudai Food Co. pulled its cream buns, meat buns and creamed corn crepes from supermarkets a week ago and tests have found traces of contamination in several products, Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry official Mina Kojima said Friday.

So far, there were no reports of health problems stemming from the contamination, she said. Marudai has sold more than 300,000 of the products, most of which are believed to have been consumed.

News of that contamination came after the Chinese territory of Macau said it detected melamine at 24 times the safety limit in products from another Japan-based company, Koala’s March cookies made by Lotte China Foods Co. The company is a member of a Tokyo-based conglomerate, Lotte Group.

An official at Lotte (China) Investment Co. Ltd. in Shanghai said Friday previous inspections had not shown any problems.

“But now that it tested positive in Macau, we find it necessary to do the inspections all over again,” said Guo Hongming, a legal assistant in Lotte Shanghai’s corporate planning department.

Some Hong Kong supermarkets pulled the chocolate-filled cookies off shelves Friday after the announcement by Macau authorities late Thursday. Cookie packages list whole milk powder as an ingredient.

Only some types of milk powder and milk have been recalled in mainland China so far, but the maker of one of China’s most popular candies said Friday it had halted sales because of suspected melamine contamination. White Rabbit candies have already been pulled from shelves around Asia and in Britain.

Ge Junjie, a vice president of Bright Foods (Group) Co. Ltd., was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency that the company was waiting for test results from the Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

“We decided to halt all sales of White Rabbit candy, although the test results have not yet come out,” Ge said. Bright Foods’ subsidiary Guangshengyuan produces White Rabbit.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese authorities reported that three children who consumed Chinese milk formula had developed kidney stones, and doctors were checking whether their illnesses were linked to tainted products.

The two 3-year-old girls and a 1-year-old boy traveled frequently between Taiwan and China with their parents, said Liu Yi-lien, health chief of the Ilan county government in eastern Taiwan. One of the girls’ mothers also has kidney stones, he said.

“They have all consumed Chinese milk, but more tests are needed to establish the link to their kidney stones,” Liu said.

The cases are the first reports of illnesses on the island that could be related to tainted Chinese milk products. Six children have also become ill from melamine-tainted products in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau.

Still, the World Health Organization said it did not expect the number of victims to grow dramatically.

WHO China representative Hans Troedsson said public awareness of the issue meant many young children were getting health checks and avoiding tainted products.

“I think we will see some more cases, but not the high number like so far,” he said. “I think the recall and more thorough investigation and testing are now starting to eliminate some of these contaminated products from coming out to the public.”

On Thursday, the European Union banned imports of baby food containing Chinese milk. The move by the 27-nation EU adds to the growing list of countries that have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products because of the contamination.

Health experts say ingesting a small amount of melamine poses no danger, but in larger doses, the chemical — used to make plastics and fertilizer — can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable.

Chinese suppliers trying to cut costs are believed to have diluted their milk while adding melamine because its nitrogen content can fool tests aimed at verifying protein levels.

China has set the time of 9.07 p.m. (1307 GMT) on Thursday for its third manned space flight that will include a space walk, an official for the space programme said on Wednesday.In October 2003, China became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket, after the former Soviet Union and the United States. It sent two more astronauts on a five-day flight on its Shenzhou VI craft in October 2005.

Last year, China sent its first lunar probe into orbit. China’s longer-term goals include establishing a space station and landing on the moon.

Olympics bronze medalist boxer Vijender Kumar walked the ramp for designer Rohit Bal at the India Couture Week in Mumbai on Sunday, adding a befitting touch to the grand finale.Innovative designs with outstanding colour combinations ruled the ramp at Bal’s show. The boxer, said, he was quite confident while walking on the ramp. Meanwhile, Manish Malhotra dazzled the fashion enthusiasts with his bridal themed collection.

Malaysia will turn to nuclear energy to generate electricity by 2023 as supplies of fossil fuel eventually run out, a minister said according to Saturday news reports.

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Shaziman Mansor said the use of nuclear energy was also an alternative to counter high global oil prices, the Star newspaper reported.

“I will be briefing the cabinet in a fortnight. We have no choice but to start the ball rolling,” he was quoted as saying.

“You cannot say you want to use nuclear power in the next few months, and expect everything to be in place,” the minister said.

Malaysia in June raised electricity tariffs after coal prices surged but Shaziman said the price of coal was now much higher than the government’s estimate of about 75 dollars per tonne.

“The increase in coal prices had been exceptional and we need to act now,” Shaziman said.

State utility Tenaga has said it could construct the country’s first 1,000 MW nuclear power plant at a cost of 3.1 billion dollars after being asked by the government to look at the option amid surging global oil prices and the country’s limited supply of oil and natural gas.

Currently, half of Malaysia’s power plants run on gas. Other sources include coal and hydropower.

The government last year said it would build Southeast Asia’s first nuclear monitoring laboratory to allow scientists to check the safety of atomic energy programmes in the region.