LONDON (AP):

The World Health Organisation says vaccine manufacturers are on track to start delivering the first batches of swine flu vaccine in September.

Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO's vaccine director, says several drugmakers have started testing the vaccine in humans and early safety results should be available next month, clearing the way for its use. Drug regulators in Europe and the US have a fast-track approval process to make the vaccine available before extensive safety tests are completed.

Kieny said WHO expects to see reports of side effects once the vaccine is given to millions of people. WHO has recommended the first recipients of the vaccine should be health-care workers, perhaps followed by pregnant women and people with underlying health problems.

Layoffs easing

WASHINGTON (AP):

The number of newly laid-off US workers seeking unemployment insurance fell last week, the government said yesterday, fresh evidence that layoffs are easing.

The Labour Department said that initial claims for jobless benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 550,000 for the week ending August 1, down from an upwardly revised figure of 588,000 in the previous week.

'Free South Koreans'

SOUTH KOREA (AP):

Former President Bill Clinton urged North Korea to free detained South Koreans and make progress on the issue of abducted Japanese citizens, South Korean and Japanese officials said yesterday. Clinton made the requests to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during a rare meeting in Pyongyang earlier this week that secured the freedom of two US journalists detained for 140 days for allegedly entering the North illegally, the officials said.

Public smoking banned

BAGHDAD (AP):

The Iraqi Cabinet has approved a draft bill to ban smoking in public places, a government spokesman said yesterday. It's the first such bill in a country where lighting up is virtually a rite of passage for most young men. The law aims to curb the number of people who start smoking and raise awareness about the dangers of cigarettes, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. For passage, the draft still needs approval in parliament, which is in recess until September.

60-day amnesty

NIGERIA (AP):

Nigeria began a 60-day amnesty yesterday for militants fighting in the country's oil-rich Delta region, a government official said, but the main militant group said it would not participate. Security agencies estimate there are 8,000 to 11,000 fighters in the creeks but it is not clear how many will disarm, said Timiebi Koripamo-Agari, a spokeswoman for the government amnesty committee. Fighters who disarm will receive a stipend of around $430 a month while they are being retrained. Millions of Nigerians survive on less than $2 a day.