YANGON - MYANMAR'S detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday met visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, outlining conditions for dialogue with the junta as the diplomat struggled to make a breakthrough.

Mr Gambari is in Myanmar to try to push all sides in the military-ruled nation toward dialogue on democratic reform, after his last visit in August 2008 ended in deadlock with Aung San Suu Kyi refusing to meet him.

LONDON - A BLANKET of snow covered large parts of western Europe on Monday after some of the heaviest falls in two decades, causing major flight cancellations, disrupting public transport and misery on the roads.

London was covered in up to 10 centimetres (four inches) of snow, the highest recorded in 18 years, closing the world's busiest airport at Heathrow, paralysing trains and bus services and forcing many commuters to stay at home.

PARIS - FRENCH unemployment climbed by 45,000 last month, the finance minister said on Monday, four days after the country saw Europe's biggest street protests triggered by the economic crisis.

Speaking in a television interview, Ms Christine Lagarde said official figures would be released later in the day but confirmed the surge in joblessness and said France 'will certainly be in recession at some point or another'.

MORE shipments of prescription drugs are being stopped at checkpoints here, particularly at the airports.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) saw unlicensed medicines and controlled drugs clocking a 470 per cent jump in smuggling cases - the highest increase in the number of contraband smuggling cases detected last year.