Poll boost for Brown

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s governing Labour Party is closing the gap on the Conservatives, a new poll showed Sunday, raising the prospect of a hung parliament at the general election due by June. The Ipsos Mori poll for The Observer newspaper put the centre-right Conservatives on 37 percent support and centre-left Labour on 31 percent -- the smallest gap for nearly a year. The centre-left Liberal Democrats were on 17 percent, suggesting the election could end in a hung parliament where no party has a majority. The Conservatives would likely need a nine per cent lead to claim an overall majority in parliament -- 326 seats. The Liberal Democrats currently hold 63 seats.

Israeli strikes on Gaza

GAZA CITY: Three Israeli air strikes on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip overnight wounded eight Palestinians, one of them seriously, medics said on Sunday. Five people were wounded, including the one seriously, in a raid carried out on smuggling tunnels near the southern town of Rafah, they said. The other three people were wounded in strikes against metal workshops in the territory, one of them in the centre and the other in the north, they said. An army spokesman told AFP the raids came in response to a rocket fired on Saturday into southern Israel from the enclave, which landed without causing injuries or damage. It marked the latest violence along Gaza’s border, which has been mostly quiet since a war that Israel launched on Hamas in Gaza on December 27 in response to rocket fire ended with mutual ceasefires on January 18.

Climate change meet

COPENHAGEN: Sixty-five world leaders have so far confirmed they will attend the UN Copenhagen climate summit next month, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said on Sunday. Leaders from Brazil, Germany, France, Britain and Australia are among those who have “responded positively” to the invite, Rasmussen said during his party’s annual conference in the central city of Odense.