■ INDIA.Tata wins race for Corus. Indian firm Tata Steel has won the battle to take over Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus. Tata?s bid for the European steelmaker, which was created from the merger of British Steel and Hoogovens, beat that of its Brazilian rival CSN. Britain?s Takeover Panel said Tata had won after offering 608p per share, valuing Corus at £5.75bn ($11.3bn). Corus employs 47,300 people worldwide, including 24,000 in the UK at plants at Port Talbot, Scunthorpe and Rotherham. Cours shares jumped nearly 7% on the news in early trading in London. Tata, which is based in Mumbai (Bombay), previously said its takeover would not lead to job losses in the first phase. The takeover will create the world?s fifth-largest steel group.

■ OTTAWA. Canada?s environment commissioner loses job. Canada?s environment commissioner lost her job on Tuesday amid reports that she had irritated her boss by making outspoken calls for action on climate change. Johanne Gelinas worked for the office of the auditor-general, which reports to Parliament rather than the government of the day. She issues an annual report on how Ottawa is handling environmental issues. Auditor-General Sheila Fraser said Gelinas was ?leaving the position to pursue other opportunities?. Fraser also said she was reviewing the environment commissioner?s mandate. In a report issued last September, Gelinas said the minority Conservative government should set firm targets to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, despite its dislike of the Kyoto protocol on climate change. She also attacked the previous Liberal government ? which was in power from 1993 to 2006 ? on the grounds that it had not done enough to cut emissions. The tone of the comments was unusually strong for an official whose job was to prepare an audit of government actions. The Globe and Mail newspaper and other media outlets said Fraser had been unhappy for months with Gelinas over the outspoken tone of her remarks.

■ AUSTRALIA. Earthquake rocks Macquarie island. An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 rocked the coast of Australia?s remote Macquarie Island Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said.The quake struck at 2:54 p.m. local time and was centered six miles below the seabed.Stuart Koyanagi, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at Ewa Beach, Hawaii, said the quake was unlikely to generate a major Pacific-wide tsunami.?Normally at this magnitude we don?t expect any kind of destructive tsunami,? he said.Clive Collins, a seismologist at Geoscience Australia, said the Macquarie Island earthquake involved two tectonic plates moving against each other horizontally, rather than vertically, and was unlikely to displace the large quantity of water needed to generate a tsunami.?It?s most unlikely there would be any tsunami,? he said. ?It?s a fairly large earthquake and it?s fairly shallow, but we don?t think there?s any risk.?The isolated, sparsely populated island lies about 835 miles south of the island state of Tasmania, and serves as a base for Australian expeditions to Antarctica.

■ ROME. Berlusconi?s wife wants apologies for sexist quip. The wife of Italy?s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded a public apology from him yesterday for sexist quips that she said were ?damaging to my dignity?, in a bitter font-page letter to a leading newspaper. Berlusconi told some women at a TV awards dinner last week that ?if I wasn?t already married I would marry you right away?, and ?with you I?d go anyway?, she said in the letter. Veronica, Berlusconi?s second wife and mother of three of his children, said the comments belittled her and that she only decided to take her marital spat public after failing to win an apology in private. ?These are affirmations that I see as damaging to my dignity, affirmations that ... cannot be reduced to jokes,? wrote Veronica, a former actress. ?To my husband and to the public man I therefore ask for a public apology, having not received one privately.? The letter, a huge embarrassment to Berlusconi, was given extra sting by his wife?s decision to publish it in Italy?s top left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper, which is sharply critical of the leader of the centre-right political opposition.

■ QUITO. Correa supporters force Congress evacuation. Crowds of protesters demanding support for leftist President Rafael Correa?s constitutional reforms stormed Ecuador?s Congress, forcing members to evacuate, lawmakers and witnesses said. Police fired tear gas at the crowds, who wielded sticks and bottles as they stormed the unpopular 100-member Congress. The demonstrators briefly entered the capitol before being forced out by police. ?We had to leave the building because the protest was getting out of hand,? Federico Perez, a congressman of the opposition PRIAN party, told Reuters. ?They were yelling, ?Kill them all.?? While the charismatic Correa enjoys a 73-percent approval rating, Congress is widely seen as corrupt and inefficient and is favored by only 13 percent of Ecuadoreans, according to a recent Cedatos Gallup poll. More than three-quarters of Ecuadoreans back Correa?s call for referendum to decide whether to call an assembly with broad powers to draft a new constitution, according to another Cedatos poll. Thousands of protesters shouted, ?Yes to the popular assembly? and ?Congressmen go home,? as police cleared streets in front of Congress.

■ ADDIS ABABA. Summit ends with Somalia force still short of troops. An African summit ended yesterday with a proposed peacekeeping force for Somalia still lacking firm commitments for thousands of troops. African leaders spent much of the second day of their summit discussing the need to urgently raise an 8,000 strong force for Somalia. But Ghana?s President John Kufuor told a final press conference the number firmly pledged so far was only 4,000 with other countries still mulling contributions.

■ BERLIN. EU, Russia resist US on Iran sanctions . The United States is urging its allies to go beyond UN sanctions against Iran over its atomic programme and choke off foreign investment but is meeting strong Russian and European resistance, Western diplomats said. ?A number of countries, especially Russia, feel the United States is bullying them to end even legitimate business with Iran due to the nuclear dispute,? a senior Western official told Reuters. The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing limited sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme, which Western states fear will be used for atomic bombs. Iran says its programme is peaceful. But Washington is trying to get its allies to adopt punitive measures beyond the UN sanctions.

■ WASHINGTON. Congress can stop Iraq war, experts tell lawmakers. The US Congress has the power to end the war in Iraq, several high-powered legal experts including a former Bush administration attorney told a Senate hearing . With many lawmakers poised to confront President George W. Bush by voting disapproval of his war policy in the coming days, four of five experts called before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee said Congress could go further and restrict or stop US involvement if it chose. ?I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war,? said Bradford Berenson, a Washington lawyer who was a White House associate counsel under Bush from 2001 to 2003. ?It is ultimately Congress that decides the size, scope and duration of the use of military force,? said Walter Dellinger, former acting solicitor general ? the government?s chief advocate before the Supreme Court ? in 1996-97, and an assistant attorney general three years before that. The hearing was frequently punctuated by outbursts from more than a dozen anti-war protesters, who were asked several times to be quiet but not thrown out. ?Today we?ve heard convincing testimony and analysis that Congress has the power to stop the war if it wants to,? said Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.