A US prosecutor has agreed to retry a USBritish citizen whose 1986 death sentence was thrown out by an appeals court earlier last month.

Rather than challenge the ruling, Putnam County prosecutor Gary Lammers has made the decision to retry Kenneth Richey, who was born to a Scottish mother and American father, raised in Scotland and moved to Ohio to join his father in 1982.

The decision came after Mr Lammers discussed the case with Attorney General Marc Dann and the family of Cynthia Collins, the 2-year-old girl who was killed two decades ago in a flat fire in north-west Ohio.

Richey, now 43, was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death for starting the fire.

South Korea denies paying for hostages

SOUTH KOREA'S presidential office has denied a Taliban claim that it had paid a ransom of more than $20m ( 15m) for the release of 19 Christian missionaries held hostage in Afghanistan.

"The two conditions for the release are that we pull out our troops and stop Korean missionary work in Afghanistan by the end of the year, " said a presidential official.

The freed hostages flew out of Afghanistan on Friday to Dubai, en route for South Korea.

A Taliban commander said on Saturday: "We got more than $20m from them [the Seoul government]. With it we will purchase arms, get our communication network renewed and buy vehicles for carrying out more suicide attacks."

US-led forces kill 24 Afghan insurgents AFGHAN police and coalition forces have killed nearly 24 suspected insurgents in southern Afghanistan.

The combined force was on a combat patrol in Helmand province when insurgents attacked with mortars, rocket propelled grenades and small-arms fire, a statement said.

In the fight that ensued, "almost two dozen" insurgents were killed. No Afghan or coalition soldiers or civilians were killed, the statement said.

Taliban militants trying to oust the Western-backed government are leading an increasingly bloody campaign against Afghan and foreign troops and almost 4,000 people . . . most of them insurgents . . . have been killed this year alone.

USpolicymakers on top of credit crunch

US FEDERAL Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke vowed to do all that is necessary to protect the US economy from the ill effects of a global credit crunch . . .but not to bail out investors and lenders "from the consequences of their financial decisions".

The White House says that the Bush administration is on top of the situation that has unnerved investors on Wall Street.